And it, was in this quiet home that Hawermann’s little daughter was to spend her childhood, if God let him have his wish.  The raised hands in the Saviour’s picture would seem to bless his little girl, and the sunlight would shine upon her through these windows, and in those books she would read what great and good men had written, and by their help would gradually waken from childish dreams into the life and thoughts of womanhood.

As he was sitting there full of alternating hopes and fears, Mrs. Behrens came back, her eyes red with weeping:  “Don’t say another word, Mr. Hawermann, don’t say another word.  Braesig has told me all, and though Braesig is a heathen, he is a good man, and a true friend to you and yours.  And my pastor thinks the same as I do, I know that, for we have always been of one mind about everything.  My goodness, what hard-hearted creatures the old Nuesslers are,” she added, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor.  “The old woman,” said Braesig, “is a perfect harpy.”  “You’re right, Braesig, that’s just what she is.  My pastor must try to touch the conscience of the two old people; I don’t mean about the little girl, she will come here and live with us, or I know nothing of my pastor.”

Whilst Hawermann was expressing his deep gratitude to Mrs. Behrens her husband came in sight.  She always talked of him as “her” pastor, because he belonged to her soul and body, and “pastor” because of his personal and official dignity.  He had nothing on his head, for those high soft caps that our good protestant clergy now wear in common with the Russian popes were not the fashion at that time, in the country at least, and instead of wide bands, resembling the white porcelain plate on which the daughter of Herodias received the head of John the Baptist from her stepfather, he wore little narrow bands, which his dear wife Regina had sewed, starched and ironed for him in all Christian humility, and these little bits of lawn she rightly held to be the true insignia of his office, and not the gown, which was fastened to his collar with a small square piece of board.  “For, my dear Mrs. Nuessler,” she said, “the clerk has a gown exactly the same as that, but he dar’n’t wear bands, and when I see my pastor in the pulpit with these signs of his office on, and watch them rising and falling as he speaks, I sometimes think that they look like angels’ wings upon which one might go straight away up to heaven, except that the angels wear their wings behind, and my pastor’s are in front.”

The parson was not an angel by any means, and was the last man in the world to think himself one, but still his conduct was so upright, and his face so expressive of love and good-will, that any one could see in a moment that he was a good man, and that his was a serious, thoughtful mode of life, and yet—­when his wife had taken off his gown and bands—­there was a bright sparkle in his eye that showed he did not at all disdain innocent mirth.  He was a man who could give good counsel in worldly matters as well as in spiritual, and he was always ready to stretch out a helping hand to those in need of it.