When the older inhabitants of the town, meeting Herr Nettenmair, pause in their conversation to greet him respectfully, it is not alone the magic something that has this effect.  They know what it is that they respect in the old gentleman; when he has passed, their eyes follow him as they stand, still in silence, until he has disappeared round the corner; then it may well be that a hand is raised and an extended forefinger tells more eloquently than lips could of a long life adorned with all the virtues of a good citizen and untarnished by a single misdeed.  He is never seen in a public place, unless indeed something relating to the common welfare is to be discussed or started.  The recreation which he allows himself he seeks in his little garden.  At other times he sits over his ledgers or stands in the shed superintending the loading and unloading of the slate which comes from his own quarry and which he sells all over the country and far beyond its borders.  A widowed sister-in-law looks after his house for him and her sons manage the business of slating which is connected with the trade in slate and is scarcely inferior to it in size.  It is their uncle’s spirit, the spirit of orderliness, of conscientiousness to the point of obstinacy, that rests upon the nephews and gains and keeps for them such confidence that they are sent for from far away wherever a slater is needed to roof a new building or to make extensive repairs to an old one.

It is a peculiar life that goes on in the house with the green window-shutters.  The sister-in-law, still a beautiful woman, little younger than the master of the house, treats him with a kind of silent respect, or even veneration.  And her sons do the same.  The old gentleman shows his sister-in-law a respectful consideration, a sort of chivalry that has something touching in its grave reserve; toward his nephews he displays the fondness of a father.  Yet even there something lies between them that lends to their whole intercourse something of considerate formality.

The sabbath-like peace that now spreads its wings above the most strenuous activity of the dwellers in the house did not always hover there.  There was a time when bitter sorrow that came from stolen happiness, and wild desires divided its inmates, when even the menace of murder cast its shadow into the house; when despair at self-created misery wandered, wringing its hands in the still night, from the back door, up the stairs and along the piazza and down again by the path between the little garden and the stable-yard to the shed, creeping restlessly to the front again and again to the back.