Marie’s answer was as low, but quite decided—­

“No.”

“Why not, Marie?”

“It is very nice to be great, and I should love to see thee a great man, Friedrich, very well indeed, but the very best thing of all is to be good.  Great men are not always happy ones, though when they are good also it is very glorious, and makes one think of the words of the poor heathen in Lycaonia—­’The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.’  But if ever thou art a great man, little brother, it will be the good and not the great things of thy life that will bring thee peace.  Nay, rather, neither thy goodness nor thy greatness, but the mercy of GOD!”

And in this opinion Marie was obstinately fixed, and Friedrich argued no more.

“I think I shall do now,” said the hero at last; “I thank thee very much, Marie.”

She kissed him anew, and bade GOD bless him, and wished him good-night, and went down the ladder till her golden plaits caught again the glow of the warm kitchen, and Friedrich lost sight of her tall figure and fair face, and was alone once more.

He was better, but still he could not sleep.  Wearied and vexed, he lay staring into the darkness till he heard steps upon the ladder, and became the involuntary witness of—­the true St. Nicholas.

It was the mother, with a basket in her hand, and Friedrich watched her as she approached the place where all the shoes were laid out, his among them.

The children were by no means immaculate or in any way greatly superior to other families, but the mother was tender-hearted, and had a poor memory for sins that were past, and Friedrich saw her fill one shoe after another with cakes and sweetmeats.  At last she came to his, and then she stopped.  He lifted up his head, and an indefinable fury surged in his heart.  He had been very tiresome since the ballad was begun; was she going to put rods into his shoes only? His!  He could have borne anything but this.  Meanwhile, she was fumbling in the basket; and, at last, pulled out—­not a rod, but—­a paper of cakes of another kind, to which Friedrich was particularly attached, and with these she lined the shoes thickly, and filled them up with sweetmeats, and passed on.

“Oh, mother! mother!  Far, far too kind!” The awkwardness and stupidity of yesterday, and of many yesterdays, smote him to the heart, and roused once more the only too ready tears.  But he did not cry long, he had a happy feeling of community with his brothers and sisters in getting more than they any of them deserved; to have seen the St. Nicholas’s proceedings had diverted his mind from gloomy fancies, and altogether, with a comfortable sensation of cakes and kindness, he fell asleep smiling, and slept soundly and well.

The next day he threw his arms round his mother, and said that the cakes were “so nice.”

“But I don’t deserve them,” he added.

“Thou’lt mend,” said she kindly.  “And no doubt the Saint knew that thou hadst eaten but half a dinner for a week past, and brought those cakes to tempt thee; so eat them all, my child; for, doubtless, there are plenty more where they come from.”