er than in
Germany, that there was nothing so beautiful as the abounding brooks and
the dense greenery of his native forests, it gave him sincere joy, that
spring, to have his opinion confirmed and to see that his dearly loved
wife cared as much for the German woods as he did.

When in their walks they encountered other burghers, all eyes rested on
the handsome pair, for if Melchior were thin, his figure was tall and his
features good, and there was a strange charm in his big, dark, eyes that
seemed to find more in the woods than was visible to others, moreover the
black clothes of his profession sat as well upon him as did his wife's
white dresses and kerchiefs of costly stuffs upon her. These she was fond
of relieving by a bit of light blue, her favourite colour. The slim young
Italian, with her bowed head and beautiful pale face framed in its black
hair, seemed like an elf who had gone out in her light dress to dance the
May dance in the moonlight and had decked herself with forget-me-not and
gentian.

Whoever saw her felt glad, for it seemed to him as if he had met with a
piece of good fortune, but no one sought to make her acquaintance,
although the doctor had not omitted to take her, soon after their
arrival, to call upon his relatives and the dignitaries of the city.
People had asked them at first to dine, but as Melchior always refused
because of his wife's delicate health, they did not press the matter; for
no one could talk with her as she understood no German, while all who
heard her light cough felt that the doctor was right to guard his fragile
treasure so carefully.

When the few matrons who visited her called upon her, instead of finding
her in the kitchen or the cellar, they found her lying upon the sofa with
a book or her guitar in her hands, or perhaps playing with her little
boy, and the amiable ones among them explained it by her pale face and
delicate air, but the severer ones said that such idleness was the
Italian custom and they pitied the doctor.

What the feminine relatives of the doctor chiefly resented was the fact
that the young couple seemed to get on so perfectly well without them.
Happiness indeed shone in their eyes, and the silent doctor seemed to
find his tongue when he walked in the woods and fields with his beloved
wife. The notary Anselmus Winckler was also loud in his praises of both
of them. He was the only person who ever joined them in their walks
through the woods, and as h