his gray-haired father was an object of the fondest and most reverential
affection, beheld with horror the gradual advances of the disease which
was about to render the remaining years of life a burden to the
sightless man. With the fractiousness of advancing age and growing
infirmity, old Philipp obstinately refused to seek the assistance of any
learned leech of the country round. Brannau and Burchhausen boasted each
of a chirurgic wonder, but Stroer misdoubted or defied their skill. "His
frail body," he said, "was in the hands of a heavenly Providence, to
which, as might best beseem, he bequeathed its guidance." Meanwhile, the
perilous uncertainty of his footing, and the growing isolation of his
existence, became more and more perceptible, when one day, just as an
acknowledgement of "total eclipse" had fallen from his quivering lips,
the prop and stay of his household, his beloved son Karl was missing
from the farm! The first moment of uncertainty touching his destinies
was a trying one, but it was also brief. A few days brought a letter
from Munich, in which the absconded son implored his father's
forgiveness, forbearance, and patience, during some ensuing months.
Time, he wrote, might alone explain the motives of duty which had caused
his apparent error.

Patience is a difficult virtue to the sick and the unhappy. The blind
man, pining for his absent Karl, had need of all his trust in the
excellence of his favourite child: at times, misdoubtings naturally
arose; for the few months lengthened into seven, eight--eleven--a whole
year, and the wanderer came not again.

At length, one autumn evening, a general shriek from the little
household apprized Philipp Stroer of some unwonted occurrence, and
straightway a voice demanded his blessing, and warm tears were wept upon
his hand, and he knew that his son was at his feet! The story of Karl's