he received a barony and a handsome estate.--So much for the prophecies,
so much for the secret influence of the Counsellor Werter!

Durer was on the highway paved with gold;--but he forgot his father, and
he forgot his mother, too.

One day, when Counsellor Werter was going to court, he met Durer on the
staircase of the palace. He said to him,--

"Baron Durer, I sent yesterday, in your name, twelve thousand crowns to a
certain old shepherd in a village not far from Haerlem."

The Counsellor said this in rather a scornful voice; and he saw that
Baron Durer turned as red as the boy had done in the Valley of the
Bushes, on the evening when he was asked what his father's trade was.
The two men looked steadily at each other: the Baron with that hatred
which is never to be appeased--the Counsellor with bitter indignation.

On the evening of that very day, the Emperor received his faithful old
friend, the incorruptible Counsellor, coldly. On the morrow, Werter was
not summoned to the palace--nor the day after. Disgrace had fallen on
him. He had nourished a serpent in his bosom. He left court, and
retired far away, to a small estate which he, too, chanced to possess in
the neighborhood of Haerlem.


III.

As to John Durer, he rose to higher and higher dignities. The Emperor,
after having made him minister, married him to a noble heiress. About