The little women quarrelled over it, and snatched and hid and contemplated it in secret, each in her turn, until the strife it engendered was put an end to by a doughty smith, their mother's brother, who divided it into equal halves, through which he drove a hole, and the pieces being now thrown out of the currency, each one wore her share of it in her bosom from that time, proudly appeased.
They were not ordinary peasant children, and happily for them they had another friend that was not a bird of passage, and was endowed by nature and position to do the work of an angel.

She had them educated to read, write, and knit, and learn pretty manners, and in good season she took one of the sisters to wait on her own person.

The second went, upon her recommendation, into the household of a Professor of a neighbouring University.

But neither of them abjured her superstitious belief in the proved merits of the talisman she wore.

So when they saw the careless giver again they remembered him; their gratitude was as fresh as on that romantic morning of their childhood, and they resolved without concert to serve him after their own fashion, and quickly spied a way to it.
They were German girls.
You are now enabled to guess more than was known to Ottilia and me of the curious agency at work to shuffle us together.