there came Jan and Karl and Otho, big lads, gaining a little for
their own living; and then came August, who went up in the summer
to the high alps with the farmers' cattle, but in winter could do
nothing to fill his own little platter and pot; and then all the
little ones, who could only open their mouths to be fed like young
birds,--Albrecht and Hilda, and Waldo and Christof, and last of
all little three-year-old Ermengilda, with eyes like forget-me-
nots, whose birth had cost them the life of their mother.

They were of that mixed race, half Austrian, half Italian, so
common in the Tyrol; some of the children were white and golden as
lilies, others were brown and brilliant as fresh fallen chestnuts.
The father was a good man, but weak and weary with so many to find
for and so little to do it with. He worked at the salt furnaces,
and by that gained a few florins; people said he would have worked
better and kept his family more easily if he had not loved his
pipe and a draught of ale too well; but this had only been said of
him after his wife's death, when trouble and perplexity had begun
to dull a brain never too vigorous, and to enfeeble further a
character already too yielding. As it was, the wolf often bayed at
the door of the Strehla household, without a wolf from the
mountains coming down.

Dorothea was one of those maidens who almost work miracles, so far
can their industry and care and intelligence make a home sweet and
wholesome and a single loaf seem to swell into twenty. The
children were always clean and happy, and the table was seldom
without its big pot of soup once a day. Still, very poor they
were, and Dorothea's heart ached with shame, for she knew that
their father's debts were many for flour and meat and clothing. Of