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But far sweeter than the singing of the prized Kronprinz–at least, to any but a bird-fancier’s ears–was the singing that usually was to be heard above the trilling of the canaries, and that came from the room at the back of the shop where Roschen was engaged in her housewifely duties. It was such music as the angels made, Andreas declared, yet thinking most of all of one angel voice, the memory of which while still on earth was very dear to him; and even in the case of those who were moved by no tender association of the sweet tones of the living and the dead this estimate of Roschen’s singing did not seem unduly high. Gustav Strauss, the son of the great bird-dealer over in the rich part of the town, vowed that Andreas was entirely right in his angelic comparison; and Ludwig Bauer, the young shoemaker, who lived next door but one, went even further, and said that Hoschen’s voice was as much sweeter than any mere angel’s voice as Roschen herself was sweeter and better than all the angels in Paradise combined. There was nothing halting nor half-way in Ludwig Bauer’s opinion in this matter, it will be observed.

The little room wherein Roschen sang so sweetly while at her work was their kitchen and dining-room and parlor all in one. As noon-time drew near there would come out into the shop from this room, through the open door-way, such succulent and enticing odors of roasting pork and stewing onions and boiling cabbages, that even Bielfrak–as the Spitz dog, who was chained as a guard close beneath the cage of the Kronprinz, appropriately was named–would fall to licking his chops as he hungrily sniffed these smells delectable; and Andreas suddenly would discover how hungry he was, and would make occasion to go to the door-way that he might see if the setting of the table was begun.

“Patience, father! Presently! You are as bad as Bielfrak himself!” Roschen would say; and as this attribution of gluttony to her father was a time-honored joke between them, they always would laugh over it pleasantly. And then Andreas would stand and watch his little hausfrau with a far-away look in his gentle blue eyes as she bustled about her work in the sunny room, her pretty dimpled arms bared to above the elbow, her lovely cheeks (because of much stooping over the fire) brighter even than the roses after which she had been named, her golden hair done up in a trig, tight knot (as Aunt Hedwig had taught her was the proper way for hair to be arranged while cooking was going on), and over her tidy print gown a great white apron, fashioned in an ancient German shape, as guard against the splash-ings and spillings which even the most careful of cooks cannot always control. In the sunny windows, opening to the south, flowers were growing; the Dutch clock, with pendulous weights made in the similitude of pine-cones, ticked against the wall merrily; Maedchen, the cat–who, being most prolific of kittens, notoriously belied her name–sat bunched up in exceeding comfort on a space expressly left for her upon the sunny window-ledge among the plants; steam arose in light clouds from the various pots upon the stove, and in the middle of the little room the table stood ready for the dinner to be served.

It was a very cheerful, home-like picture this; and yet many a time, as Andreas stood in the doorway and contemplated it, there would be tears in his eyes, and a strange feeling, half of glad thankfulness, half of very sorrowful longing, in his heart. She was so like her dead mother! In look, in speech, in motions of the body, in turns of the head, and in gestures of the hands she was Christine over again. Sometimes Andreas would forget his fifty years and all the sorrows of hope destroyed and irrevocable death-parting which his fifty years had brought him, and would fancy for a moment that he was young again, and that the dearest wish of his life was here fulfilled. And then she would call him “Father!” and his moment’s dream of happiness would die coldly in his heart. Yet would there come to him always an after-glow of solacing warmth, as comforting thoughts would steal in upon him of the happiness not a dream–different from that which he had hoped for in his youth, but most sweet and real–that God’s goodness had given him in these his later years.