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She would have fled; but Hansgeorge held her with his left hand. She tried to tear herself away, turned her back, and gnawed the end of her apron: Hansgeorge would have given the world for a look, but all his entreaties were in vain. He let her go, and waited a while to see whether she would turn round; but, as she did not, he said, with a faltering voice,–

“Will you be so kind as to fetch my father? I want to go home.”

“No; you know you can’t go home: you might get the lockjaw: Dr. Erath said you might,” returned Kitty,–still without looking at him.

“If you won’t fetch anybody, I’ll go alone,” said Hansgeorge.

Kitty turned and looked on him with tearful eyes, eloquent with entreaty and tender solicitude. George took her offered hand, and gazed long and earnestly into the face of his beloved. It was by no means a face of regular beauty: it was round, full, and plump; the whole head formed almost a perfect sphere; the forehead was high and strongly protruding, the eyes lay deep in their sockets, and the little pug nose, which had a mocking and bantering expression, and the swelling cheeks, all proclaimed health and strength, but not delicacy or refinement. George regarded her in her burning blushes as if she had been the queen of beauty.

They remained silent for a long time. At last Kitty said, “Shall I fill your pipe for you?”

“Yes,” said George, and let go her hand.

This proposal of Kitty’s was the best offer of reconciliation. Both felt it as such, and never exchanged another word on the subject of their dispute.

In the evening many boys and girls, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, came to take Kitty to the dance; but she refused to go. Hansgeorge smiled. When he asked Kitty to go as a favor to him, she skipped joyfully away, and soon came back in her holiday gown. Another difficulty arose, however. With all their good nature, none of the comers cared to give up their dance and stay with Hansgeorge; and Kitty had just announced her intention, when, fortunately, old Jake came in. For a good stoup of wine,–which they promised to send him from the inn,–he agreed to sit up all night, if necessary.

Hansgeorge had got Dr. Erath to preserve his finger in alcohol, and intended to make Kitty a present of it; but, with all her strength of nerve, the girl dreaded it like a spectre, and could hardly be induced to touch the phial. As soon as Hansgeorge was able to leave the house, they went into the garden and buried the finger. Hansgeorge stood by, lost in thought, while Kitty shovelled the earth upon it. The wrong he had done his country by making himself unfit to serve it never occurred to him; but he remembered that a part of the life which was given him lay there never to rise again. It seemed as if, while full of life, he were attending his own funeral; and the firm resolve grew in him to atone for the waste committed of a part of himself by the more conscientiously husbanding what yet remained. A thought of death flitted across his mind, and he looked up with mingled sadness and pleasure to find himself yet spared and the girl of his heart beside him. Such reflections glimmered somewhat dimly in his soul, and he said, “Kitty, you are quite right: I committed a great sin. I hope it will be forgiven me.” She embraced and kissed him, and he seemed to have a foretaste of the absolution yet to come.

One would expect to find in a man a peculiar fondness for the spot where a part of his bodily self is buried. As our native country is doubly dear to us because the bodies of those we love are resting there,–as the whole earth is revealed in all its holiness when we call to mind that it is the sepulchre of ages past, that