Kunz, the younger, I found in the swing; he flew so high that I thought he would fling himself out, and I cried to him to stop a minute; but, as he clutched the rope tighter and pulled himself together to stand firm on the board, he cried: "Leave me now, Margery; I want to go up, up; up to Heaven--up to where mother is!" That was enough for me; and from that hour we often spoke together of our sainted mother, and Cousin Maud took care that we should likewise keep our father in mind.

She had his portrait--as she had had my mother's--brought from the great dining-room, where it had hung, into the large children's room where she slept with me.

And this picture, too, left its mark on my after-life; for when I had the measles, and Master Paul Rieter, the town physician and our doctor, came to see me, he stayed a long time, as though he could not bear to depart, standing in front of the portrait; and when he turned to me again, his face was quite red with sorrowful feeling--for he had been a favorite friend of my father, at Padua--and he exclaimed: "What a fortunate child art thou, little Margery!" I must have looked at him puzzled enough, for no one had ever esteemed me fortunate, unless it were Cousin Maud or the Waldstromers in the forest; and Master Paul must have observed my amazement, for he went on.
"Yea, a happy child art thou; for so are all babes, maids or boys, who come into the world after their father's death." As I gazed into his face, no less astonished than before, he laid the gold knob of his cane against his nose and said: "Remember, little simpleton, the good God would not be what he is, would not be a man of honor--God forgive the words--if he did not take a babe whom He had robbed of its father before it had seen the light or had one proof of his love under His own special care.

Mark what I say, child.

Is it a small thing to be the ward of a guardian who is not only Almighty but true above all truth ?" And those words have followed me through all my life till this very hour..