rs, you would forget him;
and that's what Fritz says."

"No, Mr. Fritz, I should _not_ forget him,--but I should not let him
go away for six years."

"But suppose the king ordered him?"

"Then the king don't deserve to have a wife."

"And yet he has."

"So much the worse!"

"Bertha must have sat down."

"You know I don't think I care for one of my lovers. I think I could
give them all up,--yes, every one,--if I met with anybody that I
could love."

"Yes, and then suppose he didn't care for you?"

As Doome had never considered the probability of any such situation,
its suggestion rather startled her. She held her tongue, while
Daniel puffed gravely.

Soon Bertha came slowly into the room. "I think he ought to have got
there by this time; don't you, Sir?"

"He's named Fritz, Bertha,--call him Fritz."

"Don't you think he ought to be there by this time, Mr. Fritz?"

"Surely, Mistress! You will soon hear the cannon;--'tis not more
than two miles, and he left the shore a good hour ago."

So she went up to the window.

"I suppose, Mistress, if he did not come back for six years, you
would forget him,--wouldn't you?"

She was so lost in thought, that she didn't answer; so Doome took
the answer upon herself. "You are very hard upon us women, Fritz,--Mr.
Fritz. No, of course she would not forget him; no wife ever forgets
her husband. Why, do you think I should forget you, Fritz,--Mr.
Fritz,--if you were my husband, and if you went away for six years?"

"There are women and women, Doome, Fraeulein Doome,"--

"Ah!--hark!"

At this moment the sound of a cannon-shot swept over the little
cottage, and Daniel, running to the window, and putting his hand out
to feel the breeze, declared that it was fired east-ward.

Now Bertha was at the window, and, as the sailor spoke, he looked
into her face. She quickly put her arm round his neck in the German
fashion, kissed him gratefully, and said, "You good, good man!"

He kissed her in turn, and looked eagerly at her,--but she didn't
recognize him, though he kissed her in precisely the manner of six
years ago.

He sat down again, and again smoked,--and as, in the most heroic
poem, people eat and drink, and as Anne Boleyn would have thought it
hard to starve while her trial was going on, surely, as this is only
the chronicle of people such as you may meet any day, and not at all
heroic, it may not be wrong to state, that plain-spoken, every-day,
love-making little