she look as if she would oust you?"

"No, indeed," answers Johannes with a somewhat uneasy laugh.

"Oh, my boy," growls Martin, scratching his bushy head, "what a lot of worry I have been through!--I tossed about in my bed a long night when I thought of you! I mean on account of the wrong I might be doing you."--Then after a time--"And yet when I look at her--she is so fair--so innocent--say yourself, my boy, could I possibly help loving her? When I saw her--ah--why it was all over with me.--In so many ways she reminded me of you--merry, and bright-eyed and full of mischief, just like you.--Of course she was a child and has remained one to the present day--Charmless and wild and playful as a child.--And I tell you--she wants holding in tighter--her spirits run away with her.--But that is just how I love her to be"--a tender look brightens his features--"and if I rightly think it over, I would not even miss one of her ridiculous doings. You know I always must have some one to watch over--formerly I had you, now she is the one."

After relieving his feelings in this manner, he once more becomes silent.

"And are you happy?" asks Johannes.

Martin hides himself in a thick cloud of smoke, and from out of that he mutters after a time:

"Well, that depends!"

"On what?"

"On your not being angry with her."

"I angry with her?"

"Well, well, you needn't make excuses!"

Johannes does not reply. He will soon convince his brother of better things--and closing his eyes, he buries his head once more in the waving foliage. A gleam of light causes him to look up. Trude is standing on the threshold, holding a lamp and looking ashamed of herself. Her charming, childlike face is bathed in a red glow and the drooping lashes cast long, semi-circling shadows on her full cheeks.

"What a ridiculous creature you are!" says Martin, stroking her ruffled hair tenderly.

"Won't you go to rest, Johannes?" she asks with great seriousness, though there is still the sound of suppressed laughter in her voice.

"Good-night, brother!"

"Wait, I am coming too!"

Johannes shakes hands with his sister-in-law, while she turns her face aside with a furtive smile.

Martin takes the lamp from her and precedes his brother up the stairs. At the top he takes his hand and gazes silently and deeply into his eyes, like one who cannot yet contain his happiness; then he softly closes the door.

Johannes sighs and stretches himself, pressing both hands to his breast. His heart is heavy for very joy. He feels as if he must go after his brother and relieve his feelings by a few loving, grateful words, but already he hears his steps downstairs in the entrance. It is too late. But his mind must be calmer before he can attempt to sleep.

He puts out the lamp and pushes open a window. The night air cools his brow.--How soothing it is--how it wafts peace!

He bends over the window-ledge, whistles a song to himself and looks out into the night. The apple-tree beneath him is in full bloom--a waving sea of blossoms. How often as a child he has climbed up there, how often, tired with play, he has leant, dreaming, against its trunk, while its rustling leaves told him fairy stories. And when in autumn a gust of wind swept through the branches, it brought down a shower of rosy-cheeked apples, which fell almost into his lap.--What ecstasy that was! How many things enter one's thoughts as one whistles! Each note awakens a new song, each melody conjures up new reminiscences. And with the old songs there returns the old longing and flies on butterfly's wings through a vast empire between the moon and the morning sun!--

And as he looks down upon the earth melting into darkness, he sees how a window is softly opened and an upturned face bends far out. From out of a pale, gleaming oval, framed in a background of shadowy hair, two dark eyes glanced up at him, slyly and mischievously.

Abruptly he stops whistling; then a teasing laugh greets his ears, and his sister-in-law's merry voice cries: "Go on, Johannes!"

And when he will not do her bidding, she points her own lips and attempts a few very imperfect notes.

Then Martin's deep bass voice becomes audible in the house, saying in a tone of paternal reproof:

"None of your nonsense, Trude! Let him sleep!"

"But he doesn't sleep," she answers, pouting like a scolded child. Then the window is shut. The voices die away.

Johannes laughingly shakes his head and goes to bed, but he cannot sleep. Those flowers prevent him which Trude has placed at his bed-side, and the leaves of which hang right over the edge of the bed. Pale bluish bunches of lilac and the nebulous white stars of narcissi are mingled together. He turns round, kneels up in bed and buries his face in the flowery depths. Fondly the leaflets kiss his eye-lids and his lips.

Suddenly he listens. From underneath the floor, as it were from the bowels of the earth, comes a quiet laugh. It is soft as a breath of wind passing over the grass, but so merry, so full of happiness.

He listens, hoping to hear it again, but all is still. "Crazy little body, you," he says amused, then falls back upon his pillow and drops to sleep smiling.

Next day Johannes fetches down his working-clothes. They are a bit tight across the shoulders. But then, one gets broader.

The sun is already high in the heavens. As if it could shine so brightly, right into one's heart, anywhere else!--The sun of home is a wonderful thing. What it looks upon, it gilds, and when it touches one's lips, they begin to sing.

"It is lovely at home--hurrah!"

"Now I have a nest of merry birds in the house," laughs Martin, coming to greet him. "Go on singing. I am used to that from Trude--but what are you doing in that white coat?"

"I suppose you think I am going to be idle here?"

"At least just for a day!"

"Not for an hour! My lazy times are over!"

Martin has meanwhile noticed the flowers at the bed-side and says with a grumbling laugh: "Now there's a little witch for you! I have forbidden it for myself, and now she begins the same nonsense with others. That's why you look so pale this morning.

"I, pale? Not in the least!"

"Don't say a word! I'll cure her of her tricks."

With that they go downstairs.

Trude is nowhere to be seen.

"She has been in the garden since five o'clock," says Martin with a pleased smile. "Everything goes like clock-work since she's at the head of affairs. As quick as a weasel, up at peep of day and always merry, always ready with a song and a laugh."

On their way to the mill a young turnip whizzes past the brothers', heads. Martin turns round and laughingly threatens with his finger.

"Who was that?" asks Johannes, peering in bewilderment round the empty yard.

"Who but she?"

"But can you see her anywhere?"

"Not a trace of her! Oh, she's a teasing elf who can become invisible at will." And with a beaming face he follows his brother to the mill.

The hours pass by. Johannes wants to show what he can do and works with twofold energy.

While he is superintending the storing of the grain on the gallery, some one from below gently pulls his coat-tail. He looks down;--Trude, with sun-heated face and