love me?"

Hedwig bent down and plucked a pink from its stem. The garden-gate
opened, and Buchmaier's Agnes came in.

"Good gracious! I'm so glad I'm out!" cried she. "Good-day, Mr.
Teacher. Hedwig, just be glad you needn't go into Bible-class any more.
Mr. Teacher, you ought to manage so that big girls like us needn't go
any more. It wouldn't do me much good, to-be-sure, for I'm coming out
in fall."

"Give me the pink," said the teacher to Hedwig, in a tone of gentle
entreaty. Blushing, she complied, and he pressed the symbol of requited
affection to his lips.

"You'll catch it," said Agnes, "when old Ha ha sees that you've plucked
one of his flowers: well, for good luck, he's sitting with Beck and
playing the new waltz. Won't we dance it at harvest-home? You dance, I
hope, Mr. Teacher?"

"A little, but I'm very much out of practice."

"Practice makes perfect:--loldeloleroldelol!" chirped Agnes as she
skipped about the garden. "What are you making faces at, Hedwig? Come."
She dragged Hedwig away irresistibly, but with so much awkwardness that
they trod into a bed. Agnes loosened the earth, singing, and then said,
"Come, let's get out of this garden, where there isn't room to swing a
cat; the other girls are all out in the Cherry Copse, and he's been
waiting for us this long time, I'll warrant."

"Who?" asked the teacher.

"Why, he," replied Agnes: "if you come along you may see him for
nothing: we're good enough for you to go with us, a'n't we?"

The teacher took the hand of Agnes, and, holding it as if it had
been Hedwig's, he went out into the fields with the two girls. At the
cross-roads, where you turn up to the "Daberwarren," on a hemp-crate,
they found a man of powerful frame, tall and straight as a fir, in whom
the teacher recognised Buchmaier's ploughman. On seeing them approach,
he sprang to his feet and stood rooted to the ground by some strange
misgiving; but when Agnes walked up to him his brow relaxed, and he
looked bright and cheerful. The teacher saluted Thaddie--such was his
name--with great warmth, and the two couples walked on cosily together.

To inspire Thaddie with confidence, the teacher asked a host of
questions about the sorrel, and how he took to double harness.

Thus had come to pass what, a little while before, the teacher would
never have dreamed of: his beloved was a peasant-girl, and his comrade
a ploughman.

Thaddie and Agnes went before, and the teacher, hand-in-hand with