e reverence of the minister's person would suffer, his
human origin and growth being so familiarly known.

After some time Valentine said again, "A minister's life is the best,
after all. His hands are never sore with ploughing, nor his back with
reaping, and yet the grain comes into his barn: he lies on a sofa and
studies out his sermon, and makes his whole family happy. Ivo, if you
are good you can be a gentleman. Would you like to?"

"Yes!" cried Ivo, looking up at his father with his eyes opened to
their full width. "But you mustn't say 'they' to me," he added.

"Plenty of time to see about that," replied Valentine, smiling.

After dinner Ivo stood on the bench behind the table, in the corner by
the crucifix, where his father had been sitting. At first he only moved
his lips; but gradually he spoke aloud, and made a long, long sermon.
With the most solemn mien in the world, he talked the most rambling
nonsense, and never stopped until his father laid his hand kindly on
his head, and said, "There! that's enough, now."

His mother took Ivo upon her lap, hugged and kissed him, and said,
almost with tears, "Mother of God! I would be content to die if our
Lord God would let me see the day on which you held your first mass."
Then, shaking her head, she added, in a low voice, "God forgive me my
sins! I am thinking too much of myself again." She set down the boy,
and placed her other hand on his head.

"And Mag shall be my housekeeper, sha'n't she?" said Ivo; "and I'll
have city dresses made for her, just as the parson's cook wears."

Madge, Ivo's cousin from Rexingen, rewarded him for his sermon with a
creutzer. Then he ran out to Nat the ploughman, who was sitting under
the walnut-tree at the door, and told him that he was going to be a
gentleman. Nat only shook his head and pushed the glowing tobacco down
into his pipe.

The afternoon service was not so well attended as usual: the morning
had absorbed all the devotion of the worshippers. Toward sundown the
young minister, with the chaplain of Horb and some other clergymen,
took a walk through the village. All the people who sat before their
houses arose and greeted them: the older women smiled on the pastor, as
if to say, "We know you and like you. Do you remember the pear I gave
you? and I always said Gregory would be a great man some day." The
young men took their pipes out of their lips and their caps from their
heads, and the girls retreated into a house and