their earliest green, did my mother go with us, and then she wore a
cotton gown, which she put on only on these occasions, and when she
partook of the Lord's Supper, and which, as long as I can remember, was
her holiday gown. She always took home with her from the wood a great
many fresh beech boughs, which were then planted behind the polished
stone. Later in the year sprigs of St. John's wort were stuck into the
chinks of the beams, and we considered their growth as omens whether
our lives would be long or short. Green branches and pictures
ornamented our little room, which my mother always kept neat and clean;
she took great pride in always having the bed-linen and the curtains
very white.

The mother of my father came daily to our house, were it only for a
moment, in order to see her little grandson. I was her joy and her
delight. She was a quiet and most amiable old woman, with mild blue
eyes and a fine figure, which life had severely tried. From having been
the wife of a countryman in easy circumstances she had now fallen into
great poverty, and dwelt with her feeble-minded husband in a little
house, which was the last, poor remains of their property. I never saw
her shed a tear. But it made all the deeper impression upon me when she
quietly sighed, and told me about her own mother's mother, how she had
been a rich, noble lady in the city of Cassel, and that she had married
a "comedy-player," that was as she expressed it, and run away from
parents and home, for all of which her posterity had now to do penance.
I never can recollect that I heard her mention the family name of her
grandmother; but her own maiden name was Nommesen. She was employed to
take care of the garden belonging to a lunatic asylum, and every Sunday
evening she brought us some flowers, which they gave her permission to
take home with her. These flowers adorned my mother's cupboard; but
still they were mine, and to me it was allowed to put them in the glass