ly, while for herself she has fitted a headdress of
religion after the most flourishing fashion. You think when she crows
out her oracle, and twists her little eyes, we unbelievers must
immediately truckle under. It is with her I am most out of patience,
for she it is in fact that has radically ruined the whole family."

They were now standing at the spring. The sun had long set, and a man
was seen winding out of the darkness from behind the willow bush. "Ah!
Michael!" cried the Baron. "May you have occasion, gentlemen, for an
honest servant?"

"Why," asked the officer, "have you quitted the service of the
excellent Baroness, who takes such maternal care of her people?"

"Ah! your honour," said the servant, "because the other day I told a
little bit of a harmless fib, I was directly turned off."

"That is as it should be!" cried the officer, "there I recognize that
noble-minded woman."

"All was but a plot," proceeded Michael, "of that spiteful Miss Erhard:
she cannot bear that man and maid should be kind to each other, because
nobody will release her from her single life, and ever since she saw me
give the housemaid a kiss, a month ago it was, she has borne me a
grudge for it."

"How vulgar!" exclaimed Alfred.

"Yes, your honour," said the man, "she is not a fine lady, but she is
pretty, and a kiss is a kiss after all. Now one day, that was on the
maid's account too, I had forgotten to fetch a new book from town, it
was one of the double-refined pious sort, I believe, and, in my
quandary, I said the book was already lent, and it came out that I had
not gone at all, and so, for that bit of a lie, I was immediately
dismissed the service."

"Have you occasion for him?" the Baron asked the two young people. They
however protested, they would never have to do with a man, who could
not even be endured in the most liberal and indulgent of families.
"Well then, stay in the mean time with me," concluded the Baron, "but
lie as little as possible."

"Certainly, your honour," cried the man, "of set purpose never; there
often comes across one in one's straits a forced lie, which the old
priest in my village yonder himself thought excusable; but their
honours, my mistresses, weigh every thing in scales of gold; and in a
house where there is nothing to be seen but the quintessence of piety,
and virtue in full trim, a poor ordinary servant does not get on at
all. We have too much earth in us, my good sirs, the gentlefolk ha