three girls went slowly down the stairs to the
bride's father, while the men seized the chests and bags and started to
carry them down into the entrance-hall.

Then the bride, escorted by both bridesmaids, entered the door, holding
her head stiff and firm under the quivering gold crown, as if she were
afraid of losing the ornament. She offered her hand to her father, and,
without looking up, bade him a good morning. The old man, without any
show of feeling, replied "Thank you," and assumed his previous posture.
The bride sat down at the other side of the door, put her spinning-wheel
in front of her and began to spin industriously, an occupation which
custom required her to continue until the moment the bridegroom arrived
and conducted her to the bridal carriage.

In the distance faint notes of music were heard, which announced the
approach of the bridal carriage. But even this sign that the decisive
moment was at hand, the moment which separates a child from the parental
house and shoves the father into the background so far as his child's
dependence is concerned, did not produce any commotion at all among the
people, who, like models of old usages, were sitting on either side of
the door. The daughter, very red, but with a look of unconcern, spun
away unwearyingly; the father looked steadily ahead of him, and neither
of them, bride or father, said a word to the other.

The first bridesmaid, in the meanwhile, was out in the orchard gathering
a bouquet for the bridegroom. She selected late roses, fire-lilies,
orange-yellow starworts--a flower which in that locality they call
"The-Longer-the-Prettier" and in other places "The Jesus Flowerlet"--and
sage. The bouquet finally grew to such proportions that it could have
sufficed for three bridegrooms of high rank--for peasants must always do
things on a large scale. But all together it did not smell any too sweet,
for the sage emitted a strange odor, and the starworts a positively bad
one. On the other hand, neither of them, especially the sage, could be
left out, if the bouquet was to possess the traditional completeness.
When she had it ready, the girl held it out before her with proud
enjoyment, and tied it together with a broad, dark-red ribbon. She then
went to take her place beside the bride.

CHAPTER XI

THE HUNTER AND HIS PREY

While the ceremony was thus monopolizing the entire Oberhof, there were,
wholly without ceremony, two young people together upstairs