Many of their friends fell away entirely, and the rest became cool and distant.

Marget was a lovely girl of eighteen when the trouble came, and she had the best head in the village, and the most in it.

She taught the harp, and earned all her clothes and pocket money by her own industry.

But her scholars fell off one by one now; she was forgotten when there were dances and parties among the youth of the village; the young fellows stopped coming to the house, all except Wilhelm Meidling--and he could have been spared; she and her uncle were sad and forlorn in their neglect and disgrace, and the sunshine was gone out of their lives.

Matters went worse and worse, all through the two years.