which his little companion tried to make herself useful to him. He
supported himself with his right hand on a stout stick, and rested his
left upon the shoulder of the child at his side, and one could see that he
needed the assistance of both. From time to time he would lift his left
hand and say gently,

"Tell me, my child, if I press too heavily upon you."

Instantly, however, the child would catch his hand and press it down
again, assuring him,

"No, no, certainly not, Papa, lean upon me still more: I do not even
notice it at all."

After they had walked back and forth for a while, they seated themselves
upon one of the benches that were placed at convenient distances under the
trees, and rested a little.

The sick man was Major Falk, who had been in Karlsruhe only a short time.
He lived before that in Hamburg with his daughter Dora, whose mother died
soon after the little girl came into the world, so that Dora had never
known any parent but her father. Naturally, therefore, the child's whole
affection was centred upon Major Falk, who had always devoted himself to
his little motherless girl with such tenderness that she had scarcely felt
the want of a mother, until the war with France broke out, and he was
obliged to go with the Army. He was away for a long time, and when at last
he returned, it was with a dangerous wound in his breast. The Major had no
near relatives in Hamburg, and he therefore lived a very retired life with
his little daughter as his only companion, but in Karlsruhe he had an
elder half-sister, married to a literary man, Mr. Titus Ehrenreich.