I can still spare an hour, and as we are all sitting so cosily together here, you can tell us, unless you wish to keep silence on the subject, how you chanced to leave your distant home for Holland, and your German and Latin books to enlist under the English standard." "Yes," added Maria, without any trace of embarrassment.

"You still owe me the story.

Give thanks, children, and then go." Adrian gazed beseechingly first at his mother and then at his father, and as neither forbade him to stay, moved his chair close to his sister, and both leaned their heads together and listened with wide open eyes, while the Junker first quietly, then with increasing vivacity, related the following story: "You know that I am a native of Thuringia, a mountainous country in the heart of Germany.

Our castle is situated in a pleasant valley, through which a clear river flows in countless windings.

Wooded mountains, not so high as the giants in Switzerland, yet by no means contemptible, border the narrow boundaries of the valley.