Veronica shook her head.

“You do not understand what happiness really is, Dietrich.  I have been searching for it longer than you have, and you may believe me that it is not what you think.  It is not something at a distance, far beyond our reach; we may find it while we are at work.  We are not beggars; this house is ours, and we can still live in it.  But, Dietrich, we will try to find the way that our mother went; that is the true way to happiness and peace in life and death.”

“We will,” cried Dietrich, with solemn joy; and as he clasped Veronica again to his heart, there was that in his face and in his voice which assured her that he would never leave her again, and that they would walk in that true way of happiness and peace together.

At this moment Judith burst into the room.  When she saw the faces of the two who stood before her, she stood stock still with surprise!  She immediately took in the situation.

“So!  So! this is something that delights one’s very heart!” she cried, and her face beamed with satisfaction.  “But look out of the window!  I came to tell you!  You can say good-bye to that rascal forever.”

They stepped together to the window which looked out upon the road.  Jost was just going by.  His hands were bound together, and he was followed by the Constable, who hurried him along.  Jost looked up at the window and shrank back at what he saw; but the man drove him on.

“What does it mean?” asked Dietrich and Veronica in the same breath, turning to Judith.

“It is what was bound to come,” she explained.  “Everything is found out.  They seized the red fellow first, after I succeeded in getting it through the cattle-dealer’s thick head that he was the man to get hold of.  When they had driven the red man into a corner, so that he couldn’t lie himself out of it, he turned against Jost, and declared that Jost had planned the whole thing and that he himself had only played second-fiddle.  Which can lie the worst, no one can tell, but that they are both reaping what they have sown, is certain enough.  And now we’re to have a wedding, are we? and our Dietrich is going to settle down into regular home life again.  Welcome, neighbors; we will live in friendship together all our days.”  And Judith shook hands cordially with them both, and hastened away to spread through the neighborhood the good news of the coming marriage.

It is now ten years since Dietrich and Veronica left the church of Tannenegg where they had been made one, and the blessing had been pronounced upon their united lives.  They went first to the little church yard and knelt by the new made grave covered with flowers.  With tearful eyes, and with sad regrets in their happy hearts, they said,

“If she could only have lived to see us now!”

Today there is no more beautiful flower-garden in all Tannenegg, than that about Dietrich’s pretty white house.  Within the house all is so fresh and charming from top to bottom, that one who enters it finds it difficult to get away again from its hospitable shelter.