"Youth is not usually content," replied Peter, "but when the point in
question concerns years, readily calls 'much,' what seems to older people
'little.' True, many experiences may have been crowded into the last few
years of your life. 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. At their feet the fields and
meadows, at a greater height rise pine forests, which, like the huntsman,
wear green robes at all seasons of the year. In winter, it is true, the
snow cover them with a glimmering white sheet. When spring comes, the
pines put forth new shoots, as fresh and full of sap as the budding
foliage of your oaks and beeches, and in the meadows by the river it
begins to snow in the warm breezes, for then one fruit-tree blooms beside
another, and when the wind rises, the delicate white petals flutter
through the air and fall among the bright blossoms in the grass, and on