and this and that castle, and return by the steamer.  One can leave here early in the morning, remain for eight hours at Ruedesheim, Bingen, Rheinstein, etc., and be here again at night.  My appointment at this place does not appear to be certain, and Hans is going to Coblentz as Lord-Lieutenant; will live there in a stately palace, with the finest view in all Prussia.  By leaving here early, one reaches Coblentz by half past ten, and is back in the evening; that is easier than from Reinfeld to Reddentin, and a prettier road.  You see we are not forsaken here; but who would have thought, when we went to the wedding in Kiekow, that both of us should be removed from our innocent Pomeranian solitude and hurled to the summits of life, speaking in worldly fashion, to political outposts on the Rhine?  The ways of the Lord are passing strange.  May He likewise take our souls out of their darkness and lift them to the bright summits of His grace. That position would be more secure.  But He has certainly taken us visibly into His hand, and will not let me fall, even though I sometimes make myself a heavy weight.  The interview with Lynar the other day has truly enabled me to cast a grateful (but not pharisaical) glance over the distance which lies between me and my previous unbelief; may it increase continually, until it has attained the proper measure. * * * I am already beginning to look about here for a house, preferably outside of the city, with a garden; there my darling will have to play a very stiff, self-contained part, see much tedious society, give dinners and balls, and assume terribly aristocratic airs.  What do you say to having dancing at your house until far into the night?  Probably it cannot be avoided, my beloved heart—­that is part of the “service.”  I can see mother’s blue eyes grow big with wonder at the thought.  I am going to bed, to read Corinthians i., 3, and pray God to preserve you all to me, and grant you a quiet night and health and peace.  Dearest love to your parents.

Your most faithful

v.B.

Frankfort, April 4, ’52.

Dear Mother,—­I wished to write you today at length, but I do not know how far I shall progress in it after having given myself up for so long to enjoyment of Sunday leisure, by taking a long, loitering walk in the woods, that hardly an hour remains before the closing of the mail.  I found such pretty, solitary paths, quite narrow, between the greening hazel and thorn-bushes, where only the thrush and the glede-kite were heard, and quite far off the bell of the church to which I was playing truant, that I could not find my way home again.  Johanna is somewhat exhausted, in connection with her condition, or I should have had her in the woods, too, and perhaps we should still be there. * * * She has presented me with an exquisite anchor watch, of which I was much in need, because I always wore her small one.  In the Vincke matter I cannot, with you, sufficiently