briskly declined, and stipulated that I should deliver up to him his own.
I had not skipped far with my present, which I carried in a neat tied-up napkin, when, in the distance, I saw my friend coming toward me with the two ladies. My heart was uneasy, which was certainly unsuitable underneath this jacket. I stood still, took breath, and tried to consider how I should begin: and now only I noticed that the nature of the ground was very much in my favour; for they were walking on the other side of the brook, which, together with the strips of meadow through which it ran, kept the two foot-paths pretty far apart. When they were just opposite to me, Frederica, who had already perceived me long before, cried, "George, what are you bringing there?" I was clever enough to cover my face with my hat, which I took off, while I held up the loaded napkin high in the air. "A christening-cake!" cried she at that: "how is your sister?" "Well,"[1] said I; for I tried to talk in a strange dialect, if not exactly in the Alsatian. "Carry it to the house," said the elder, "and, if you do not find my mother, give it to the maid; but wait for us, we shall soon be back,—do you hear?" I hastened along my path in the joyous feeling of the best hope, that, as the beginning was so lucky, all would go off well; and I had soon reached the parsonage. I found nobody, either in the house or in the kitchen; I did not wish to disturb the old gentleman, whom I might suppose busy in the study; I therefore sat down on the bench before the door, with the cake beside me, and pressed my hat upon my face.
I cannot easily recall a more pleasant sensation. To sit again on this threshold, across which, a short time before, I had blundered out in despair; to have seen her already again; to have already heard again her dear voice, so soon after my chagrin had pictured
- ↑ In the original his answer is "Guet," for "Gut."—Trans.
