The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories

th him at interest. Also, there was a pleasant change; many people called at the house to congratulate him, an

nce just as it happened, and said he could not account for it,

nd tried to coax us boys to come out and "tell the truth;" and promised they wouldn't ever tell, but only wanted to know for their own satisfaction, because the whole thing was so curious. They even

t did. We went off every day and got to ourselves in the woods so that we could talk about Satan, and really that was the only subject we thought of or cared anything about; and day and night we watched for him and hoped he would come, and we got more and more impatient all the time. We hadn'

o keep track of it. That was the gold coin; we were afraid it would crumble and turn to dust, like fairy money. If it did-But it didn't. At the e

e second evening, a little diffidently, after drawing straws, and I asked it as casual

he Moral S

ctacles, and said, "Why, it is the faculty wh

ed, also to some degree embarrassed. He was waiting for me to go on

ing that lifts man above the beasts that

other boys, and we went away with that indefinite sense you have often had

hing a person did for her; so we let her have her say. And as we passed through the garden, there was Wilhelm Meidling sitting there waiting, for it was getting toward the edge of the evening, and he would be asking Marget to take a walk along the river with him when she was done with the lesson. He was a young lawyer, and succeeding fairly well and working his way along, little by little. He was very fond of Marget, and she of him. He had not dese