the
hearth, and told his story. He asked about Mary Ann, and why his
picture was still hanging in the room. His mother answered, "Don't
think any thing more of Mary Ann, I beg and beg of you: she is good for
nothing,--she is indeed!"

"Don't talk anymore about it, mother," said Aloys; "I know what I
know." His face, tinted by the ruddy glow of the hearth-fire, had a
strange decision and ferocity. His mother was silent until they had
returned to the room, and then she saw with rapture what a fine fellow
her son had become. Every mouthful he swallowed seemed a titbit to her
own palate. Lifting up the shako, she complacently bewailed its
enormous weight.

Aloys rose early in the morning, brushed up his shako, burnished the
plating of his sword, and the buckler and buttons, more than if he had
been ordered on guard before the staff. At the first sound of the
church-bell he was completely dressed, and at the second bell he walked
into the village.

Two little boys were talking as they passed him.

"Why, that's the gawk, a'n't it?" said one.

"No, it a'n't," said the other.

"Yes, it is," rejoined the first.

Aloys looked at them grimly, and they ran away with their hymn-books.
Amid the friendly greetings of the villagers he approached the church.
He passed Mary Ann's house; but no one looked out: he looked behind him
again and again as he walked up the hill. The third bell rang, and he
entered the church; Mary Ann was not there: he stood at the door; but
she was not among the late-comers. The singing began, but Mary Ann's
voice was not heard: he would have known it among a thousand. What was
the universal admiration to him now? _she_ did not see him, for whom he
had travelled the long road, and for whom he now stood firm and
straight as a statue. He heard little of the sermon; but, when the
minister pronounced the bans of Mary Ann Bomiller, of Nordstetten, and
George Melzer, of Wiesenstetten, poor Aloys no longer stood like a
statue. His knees knocked under him, and his teeth chattered. He was
the first who left the church. He ran home like a crazy man, threw his
sword and his shako on the floor, hid himself in the hay-loft, and
wept. More than once he thought of hanging himself, but he could not
rise for dejection: all his limbs were palsied. Then he would remember
his poor mother, and sob and cry aloud.

At last his mother came and found him in the hay-loft, cried with him,
and tried to comfort him. "It was high