be well endowed, but she was extremely
plain. Amongst German peasants, however, beauty hardly counts. What a
woman is worth to a man, he reckons partly in hard cash and partly in
the work she can do. There were two charmingly pretty girls in the
Bavarian village where we once spent a summer, but we were told that
they had not the faintest chance of marriage, because, though they
belonged to a respectable family, they were orphans and dowerless.
Auerbach's enchanting story of _Barfuessele_, in which the village
Cinderella marries the rich peasant, is a fairy story and not a
picture of real life. The feast at this second wedding we saw must
have cost a good deal, for it was prepared at our hotel for a large
crowd of guests and lasted for hours. It was an agitating wedding in
some of its aspects. The day before we had been startled at irregular
but frequent intervals by loud gunshots, and we were told that these
were fired in welcome of the wedding guests as they arrived. When the
bride appeared with her _Brautwagen_ and an escort of young men there
was a volley in her honour. We did not go to church to see that
wedding, as we were not attracted by the bridal pair; but we watched
the crowd from our windows, and as it was a wet day, endured the
sounds of revelry that lasted for hours after the feast began. There
was no dancing at this marriage, and as each batch of guests departed
a brass band just outside our rooms played them a send-off. It was a
jerky irritating performance, because the instant the object of their
attentions disappeared round the turn of the hill they stopped short,
and only began a new tune when there was a new departure. We were
rather glad when the day came to an end. In the Black Forest you
always know where there is a wedding, because two small fir trees are
brought from the forest decked with flying coloured streamers of paper
or ribbon, and set on either side of the bride's front door.

The German peasant loves his pipe and his beer, and on a Sunday
afternoon his game of _Kegel_; but on high days and holidays he likes
to be dancing. He and she will trudge for miles to dance at some
distant village inn. You meet them dressed in their best clothes,
walking barefoot and carrying clean boots and stockings. How they can
dance in tight boots after a long hot walk on a dusty road, you must
be a German peasant yourself to understand. The dance I remember best
took place in a barn belonging to a village i