for
joy. Just ask Johannes; I told him this morning that I didn't know where
under the sun I could find a better wife than you."

"Let me go," cried Freneli, who had carried on like an angry cat during
all this handsome speech and had not even refrained from pinching and
scratching.

"I'll let you go," said Uli, who manfully bore the scratching and
pinching; "but you mustn't suspect me of wanting you only in case I
could be tenant on the farm. You must believe that I love you anyway."

"I make no promises," cried Freneli, and she pulled herself free with
all her might, and fled to the other end of the table.

"Why, you act just like a wild-cat," cried her aunt. "I never saw such a
girl. But now be sensible, come and sit down beside me. Will you come or
not? I'll never say another kind word to you as long as I live if you
won't sit down here a minute and keep still. Uli, order another bottle.
Keep still now, girl, and don't interrupt me," continued her aunt, and
she went on to tell how she should feel if they both went away; what
evil days awaited her; shed painful tears over her own children, and
said that she could still be made happy if it might turn out as she had
thought it through in her sleepless nights. If two people could be happy
together, they were the ones. She had often told Joggeli that she had
never seen two people that understood each other so well in their work
and were so helpful to each other. If they kept on in the same way they
must become very prosperous. They would do whatever they could to help
them, she and Joggeli. They weren't like some proprietors, who weren't
happy unless a tenant was ruined on their place every other year, and
who spent sleepless nights planning to raise the rent when the tenant
was able to pay the whole amount on time, because they were afraid he
had got it too cheap. Truly, they'd do by her as by their own children,
and Freneli would have a dowry that no farmer's daughter need be ashamed
of. But if that didn't suit her and Freneli carried on so, then she
didn't know what to do; she'd rather never go home again. She wouldn't
reproach her; but she surely hadn't deserved to have Freneli act so now;
she had always done by her as she thought right. And now Freneli was
behaving in this way just to grieve her--that she could see; she hadn't
been the same to her for a long time. And the good woman wept right
heartily.

"But, Auntie," said Freneli, "how can you talk so? You've