be an intentional insult, and was firmly resolved not to stay a day longer
on the ground which once had been his property.

It was a cold, dull November day when Frau Elsbeth and her children had to
say farewell to the dear house. A fine, drizzling rain came from the sky,
making everything damp.

The heath, shrouded in gray mist, lay desolate and comfortless before their
eyes.

The youngest at her breast, the two other children crying near her, she
stepped into the vehicle which was to lead her towards her new fate, which,
alas! seemed so dark.

When they drove out of the gate, the cold winds from the heath whipped
their faces with icy scourges. Then the little one, who for so long had
been lying peaceful and quiet, began to cry bitterly. She wrapped him
closer in her cloak and bent down low over the shivering little form, in
order to hide the tears, which were streaming down her cheeks incessantly.

After half an hour's drive over the heavy rain-soaked clay roads, they
reached their destination. She could have shrieked aloud when she saw the
new house before her in all its desolation and ruin.

Wretched mud farm-buildings; a swampy yard; a low dwelling-house with a
shingle roof, from the walls of which the chalk had crumbled down and
showed the bare wall underneath; a wilderness of a garden, in which the
last sad remains of the summer asters and sunflowers stood among half-
decayed vegetables, round about a gaudy painted fence, which seemed to
have received extreme unction just before its end--this was the place