saw the tears coming to her eyes again, but she shook her head impatiently and went out.  I felt rooted to the spot.  When she had reached the door she turned once more and said, ’Your laundry is now in order.  Take good care of it, for hard times are coming!’ And then she raised her hand, crossed herself, and cried, ‘God be with you, James!  Forever and ever, Amen!’ she added in a lower voice, and was gone.

“Not until then did I regain the use of my limbs.  I hurried after her and called to her from the landing, whereupon she stopped on the stairway, but when I went down a step she called up, ’Stay where you are,’ descended the rest of the way, and passed out of the door.

“I’ve known hard days since then, but none to equal this one.  The following was scarcely less hard to bear, for I wasn’t quite clear as to how things stood with me.  The next morning, therefore, I stole over to the grocery store in the hope of possibly receiving some explanation.  No one seemed to be stirring, and so I walked past and looked into the store.  There I saw a strange woman weighing goods and counting out change.  I made bold to enter, and asked whether she had bought the store.  ‘Not yet,’ she said.  ‘And where are the owners?’ ’They left this morning for Langenlebarn.’ [63] ‘The daughter, too?’ I stammered.  ’Why, of course,’ she said, ‘she went there to be married.’

“In all probability the woman told me then what I learned subsequently from others.  The Langenlebarn butcher, the same one I had met in the store on my first visit, had been pursuing the girl for some time with offers of marriage, which she had always rejected until finally, a few days before, pressed by her father and in utter despair, she had given her consent.  Father and daughter had departed that very morning, and while we were talking, Barbara was already the butcher’s wife.

“As I said, the woman no doubt told me all this, but I heard nothing and stood motionless, till finally customers came, who pushed me aside.  The woman asked me gruffly whether there was anything else I wanted, whereupon I took my departure.

“You’ll believe me, my dear sir,” he continued, “when I tell you that I now considered myself the most wretched of mortals, but it wasn’t for long, for as I left the store and looked back at the small windows at which Barbara no doubt had often stood and looked out, a blissful sensation came over me.  I felt that she was now free of all care, mistress of her own home, that she did not have to bear the sorrow and misery that would have been hers had she cast in her lot with a homeless wanderer—­and this thought acted like a soothing balm, and I blessed her and her destiny.