between these two; and to melt the hardened form of
custom back into the true ore of morality, and stamp the coin anew
according to its value.

Even here, in this little story dealing with people who live apart from
the great tumult of the world, the reflection of this truth is seen.

The mother, who was secretly the most rejoiced over the happy
realization of her hopes, was yet full of peculiar anxiety concerning
the opinion of the world.

"After all," she said, complainingly, to Amrei, "you did a thoughtless
thing to come into the house in the way you did, so that we cannot go
and fetch you to the wedding. It was not good, not customary. If I could
only send you away for a short time, or else John, so that it would all
be more according to rule."

And to John she said plaintively:

"I hear already the talk there'll be if you marry in such a hurry.
People will say: 'Twice asked, the third time persuaded--that's the way
worthless people do it!'"

But she allowed herself to be pacified by both of them, and smiled when
John said:

"Mother, you have studied up everything, like a clergyman. Then tell me,
why should decent people refrain from doing something, simply because
indecent people use it as a cloak? Can any one say anything bad about
me?"

"No,--you have been a good lad all your life."

"Well, then let them have a little confidence in me now, and believe
that a thing may be good, even if it does not look so at first sight. I
have a right to ask that much of them. The way Amrei and I came together
was out of the usual order, to be sure, and the affair has gone on in
its own way from the very beginning. But it wasn't a bad way. Why, it's
like a miracle, if we look at it rightly. And what is it to us if people
refuse to believe in miracles nowadays, and prefer to find all sorts of
badness in these things? One must have courage and not ask the world's
opinion in everything. The clergyman at Hirlingen once said: 'If a
prophet were to rise today, he would first have to pass the government
examination and show that what he wanted was in the regular order.' Now,
mother, when one knows for oneself that something is right, then it is
best to go forward in a straight line and push aside, right and left,
whatever stands in one's way. Let people stare and wonder for a
while--they will think better of it in time."

The mother very likely felt that a thing might be accepted as a miracle
if it came in the form of a su