There were great rejoicings among their friends in Buchberg over the news that Mrs. Stanhope had adopted the two children, and that Fani was to become an art-student.  Oscar and Fred, and still more the triumphant Emma, could already see with prophetic eyes the announcement of the great exhibition to be held in the neighboring city, of the wonderful landscapes of that “celebrated painter, Fani von Buchberg!”

Heiri’s family grew better off every year with the help that came from the absent children and their new mother, and Elsli was happy in the thought that her father’s hardest days were over, and that her own good-fortune had brought good to him also.

Oscar and the Fink boys kept up an uninterrupted correspondence.  They were determined that when they were grown up to manhood they would found a Swiss brotherhood which should astonish the world.

Feklitus got back his shirts and his new clothes and his trunks safe from the clutches of the waiters at the Crown Prince.  But he never spoke of his journey to the Rhine, no matter how much his companions might ply him with questions.  If, in school, his geography lesson was upon the Rhine country, he turned a deaf ear, for he absolutely declined to learn anything about a place where innocent persons are treated with such indignity as they meet with there.

Mrs. Stein and her sister still had their hands and their hearts full with the care of the boys and girls who were at once their anxiety and their delight; but they still had time and thought to give to the interests of others, and they never failed to rejoice over the improvement and the happiness of Gritli’s children.

[Illustration]