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Who knows where were the manor-house farmer’s sons while he sat with his guests at the wedding-table? No one thought of them. Once only Vefela sank into a deep brown study and gazed fixedly into vacancy. She seemed to see nothing of what was going on around her: her look seemed to pierce the walls and to wander searching into space. She was thinking of her brothers that were gone.

Not two months later, Melchior, the third son of the manor-house farmer, was married also. At Agatha’s wedding he had made the acquaintance of the only daughter of the innkeeper of the Angel, in Ergenzingen, and engaged himself to her. Although Melchior was still very young and scarcely a year older than Vefela, the wedding was hurried as much as possible, lest he might also be forced to go to the wars. Melchior left the village, and Vefela was left at home alone. The mother’s health failed. A silent grief was gnawing at her life. She always wished to induce her husband to sell all he had and live with one of his married children; but his answers were so harsh that she was forced to drop the subject. These were sad times for Vefela, for she was always called upon to mediate and make peace. Her mother’s ill-health increased her fretfulness; and she often said that if her father were still living she would leave her husband. These two people had lived to see the second generation which issued from their union, and yet they could not come to understand each other: the older they grew the more did their heart-burnings and bickerings increase. Vefela always brought matters around, and wore an air of gayety and happiness; but in private she often wept bitterly over her sad lot and that of her parents, and made many vows never to marry. She knew no one to whom she would have devoted herself; and then she saw how much she was needed in the house to prevent the smouldering flames from bursting through the ashes. It is written that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children. Such is the case particularly with evil marriages. The heart that is without love to its father and its mother is exposed to many dangers.

The death of Vefela’s mother suddenly made her father feel how dearly, after all, he had loved her in his inmost heart. He grieved to think that he had not been more indulgent, and that he had often taken her ailments for pretexts and affectation. Every unkind word he had uttered stung him to the soul: he would gladly have given his life to recall it. Such are we. Instead of bearing with and sustaining each other in life, most men grieve when it is too late, when death has made the irreparable separation. Why not love while yet we live? Every hour not spent in kindness is so much robbed from the life of those around us, which can never be restored.

On Sunday the manor-house farmer no longer went to church in the town, but to the village church, for his wife lay buried beneath the shadow of its steeple: he always took the roundabout way of the churchyard. The weekly visit to his wife’s grave seemed like an effort to atone for his shortcomings toward her in life.

The house was all quiet now. Not a loud word was spoken, and Vefela ruled there like a spirit of peace. Peace was there, but not joy: some one seemed to be always missed or anxiously expected. Still, the effect of Vefela’s management on the manor-house farmer was such that he gradually regained his spirits: he did nothing without consulting “the child.” Indeed, he left almost every thing to her disposal: when any thing was asked of him, he usually answered, “Ask Vefela.”

Thus they lived for years. Vefela was over five-and-twenty. Many suitors asked for her hand; but she always said that she did not wish to marry; and her father always assented. “Vefela,” he would say, “you are too refined for a farmer, and when I have gained my lawsuit we will move into town, and I will give you a peck of dollars for your portion, and you can choose a gentleman.” Vefela would laugh; but secretly she agreed with her father, at least in so far that she made up her mind that if she ever did marry it should not be a farmer. She had suffered so much from the ill-governed passions and implacable hatred of the peasantry that she had contracted a great hatred against them. She thought that in town, where people are more refined and have better manners, they must also be better and truer. She had steeled herself to bear her troubles only by looking upon the people about her as coarse, and herself as something higher; and, after pondering on the matter for so many years, she had come not only to think herself better, but even to fancy that she occupied a higher position. This was her great misfortune.