The son had his arm laid on his father's shoulder and they gazed at us.
And indeed it was a noble and joyful sight as they stood there, the old
man and the young one, both of powerful and stalwart build, both grown
strong in wind and weather, and true and trustworthy men. The slim young
pine had indeed somewhat overtopped the gnarled oak, but the crown of
the older tree was the broader. Such as the young man was now the
old man must have been, and what the son should one day be might be
seen--and I rejoiced to think it--in his father's figure and face.
Howbeit, as a husband Gotz gave no promise of treading in his father's
footsteps, and when I thought of this, and of the lesson I had yestereve
received, my cheeks grew redder than they had already turned in the
sharp December air, or under the gaze of my new lover.

Howbeit I had no time for much thought; the sleigh was already at the
door, and or ever I was aware the old man had me in his arms and kissed
my lips and brow, and called me his dear and well-beloved daughter. Then
the younger man pressed forward to assert his claims, and when he bent
over me I threw my arms round his neck, and he lifted me up, for all
that I was none of the lightest in my winter furs and thick raiment,
out of the sleigh like a child, and again his lips were on mine. But we
might not suffer them to meet for more than a brief kiss. Uncle Conrad
had discovered my aunt's face among all her wrappings, and gave loud
utterance to his well-founded horror, while my aunt cried out to her
long-lost son by name again and again, with all the love of a longing
and long-robbed mother's heart.

I gladly set my lover free, and at the next minute he was on his knees
in the snow and his trembling hands removed wrap after wrap from the
beloved head, Kubbeling helping him from the driving-seat with his great
hands, purpled by the cold.

And again in a few minutes the mother was covering her only son's head
with tender kisses, so violently and so long that her strength failed
her and she fell back on the pillows, overdone.

Hereupon Gotz bowed over her, and as he had erewhile lifted his
sweetheart out of the sleigh, so now he lifted his mother; and while he
held her thus in his arms and bore her into the house, not heeding the
kerchiefs which dropped off by degrees and lay in a long line covering
the ground behind her, as coals do which are carried in a broken
scuttle, she cried in a trembling voice: "Oh yo