Edelweiss Author:Berthold Auerbach Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I. A GOOD NAME. ilHE was an excellent woman." " Yes, there are few such left." "She was one of the old school." " Go to her when you would, he... more »r help and counsel were always ready." " And how much she went through ! She buried her husband and four children, yet was always brave and cheerful." " Ah, Lenz will miss her sorely. He will find out now what a mother he had." " Nay, he knew that in her lifetime. His devotion to her was unbounded." " He must be thinking of marrying soon." " He can choose whom he will. Any house would be glad to receive such a capable, excellent fellow." " A pretty property he must have too." " Besides being the only heir of his rich uncle Petro- vitsch." " How beautiful the singing of the Liederkranz was ! It thrilled me through and through." " And how it must have affected Lenz ! He has always before sung with them, and his voice was one of the best." " Did you notice he did not shed a tear while the minister was preaching; but when his friends began to sing, he cried and sobbed as if his heart would break." " This is the first funeral that has not driven old Petrovitsch out of the town. It would have been shameful in him not to have paid the last honors to his own brother's wife." So the people talked as they went their several ways through the valley and up the mountains. All were dressed in sober clothes, for they were coming from a funeral. Near the church in the valley, where stand a few thinly scattered houses, the Lion Inn conspicuous among them, the widow of the clock-maker Lenz of the Morgenhalde had been buried. All had a good word for her ; and their sad faces showed that each had met with a personal loss in the good woman's death. As every fresh grief reopens the old wounds, the villagers h...« less