eyes the old man--he was not over fifty, but sadly bat-
tered--told Mrs. Kohler that he asked nothing better of
God than to end his days with her, and to be buried in the
garden, under her linden trees. They were not American
basswood, but the European linden, which has honey-
colored blooms in summer, with a fragrance that sur-
passes all trees and flowers and drives young people wild
with joy.

Thea was reflecting as she walked along that had it not
been for Professor Wunsch she might have lived on for
years in Moonstone without ever knowing the Kohlers,
without ever seeing their garden or the inside of their
house. Besides the cuckoo clock,--which was wonderful
enough, and which Mrs. Kohler said she kept for "company
when she was lonesome,"--the Kohlers had in their house
the most wonderful thing Thea had ever seen--but of that
later.

Professor Wunsch went to the houses of his other pupils
to give them their lessons, but one morning he told Mrs.
Kronborg that Thea had talent, and that if she came to
him he could teach her in his slippers, and that would
be better. Mrs. Kronborg was a strange woman. That
word "talent," which no one else in Moonstone, not even
Dr. Archie, would have understood, she comprehended
perfectly. To any other woman there, it would have meant