. . .I owe no one a florin, I am at peace with the world. That is happiness enough.

CHAPTER III. RELATES HOW GIDEON WOLF BECAME MASTER FINK'S
APPRENTICE.

Year after year passed peacefully and prosperously over my head until eighteen years had gone by. I was fortunate in many ways--in making friends, in earning respect, in forming a connection, and in obtaining the services of old Anna, who served me so long and so faithfully. Her age and her lack of beauty saved me from much anxiety. She had no wooers, no men dancing at her heels; I doubt, if I myself had offered to marry her, whether she would have accepted me. Not that such an idea ever entered my head. Heaven forbid! I had too great a respect for her years.

One morning, at the end of this time, a woman entered my shop--a pale, thin, elderly-looking woman, with an expression of intense weariness on her worn face. She gazed at me wistfully, a. . . Read More