t turned back toward the village again, looking neither to the
right nor to the left, and yet wishing that somebody would accost her
that she might have a companion. On the outskirts of the village she
encountered a smart-looking young man riding a white horse. He was
attired in farmer's dress, but of a strange kind, and looked very proud.
He pulled up his horse, rested his right hand with the whip in it on his
hip, and patting the animal's neck with his left, called out:

"Good morning, pretty mistress! Tired of dancing already?"

"I'm tired of idle questions already," was the reply.

The horseman rode on. Barefoot sat for a long time behind a hedge, while
many thoughts flitted through her mind. Her cheeks glowed with a flush
caused by anger at herself for having made so sharp a reply to a
harmless question, by bashfulness, and by a strange, inward emotion. And
involuntarily she began to hum the old song:

"There were two lovers in Allgau
Who loved each other so dear."

She had begun the day in expectation of joy, and now she wished that she
were dead. She thought to herself: "How good it would be to fall asleep
here behind this hedge and never to awake again. You are not to have any
joy in this life, why should you run about so long? The grasshoppers
are chirping in the grass, a warm fragrance is rising from the earth, a
linnet is singing incessantly and seems to dive into himself with his
voice and to bring up finer and finer notes, and yet seems to be unable
to say with his whole heart what he has to say. Up in the air the larks,
too, are singing, every one for himself--no one listens to the others or
joins in with the others--and yet everything is--"

Never in her life had Amrei fallen asleep in broad daylight, or if ever,
not in the morning. She had now drawn her handkerchief over her eyes,
and the sunbeams were kissing her closed lips, which, even in sleep,
were pressed together defiantly, and the redness of her chin had become
deeper. She had slept about an hour, when she awoke with a start. The
smart-looking young man on the white horse was riding toward her, and
the horse had just lifted up his fore feet to bring them down on her
chest. It was only a dream, and Amrei gazed around her as if she had
fallen from the sky. She saw with astonishment where she was, and looked
at herself in wonder. But the sound of music from the village soon
aroused the spirit of life within her, and with new strength she wa