tage. The king and the queen can't
have them better than we, and the very best of all is the same
everywhere. And do you know what it is?"

"Yes; a good kiss. It wouldn't be any better from the queen's lips than
from yours; and there I'm like the king, too, especially when I'm as
nicely shaved as today," he added, taking his wife's hand and passing
it over his smooth chin.

"You're right; but I didn't mean to say it that way. Love's the same,
too. It can't be different up there from what it is here."

"I don't know what's come over you," said Hansei. "I never thought you
were such a witch, so clever and so wide-awake. It provokes me that
people should be so familiar with you, and treat you as if you were
still the same old Walpurga."

"You ought to be glad that I'm still the same, or else I shouldn't be
your wife."

Hansei stopped chewing the potato that was in his mouth and stared at
his wife in surprise. At last he hurriedly bolted down the potato and
said: "Now that joke don't please me at all. It's wrong to joke about
such things." Both were silent.

In the next room sat the mother singing:

"My heart doth bear a burden,
And thou hast placed it there";

And the song seemed to touch them both.

"I've got something to tell you," said Hansei, at last. "It's been my
habit, for the last year, to go up to the Chamois after supper, and
especially on Saturday evenings. Sometimes I've taken a drop, and
sometimes not; and as this is Saturday and as they'll all be there, I
think I'd better go up once more, just for your sake."

"For my sake?"

"Yes, for fear the people might say: 'Now he's got to duck under, for
his gracious wife has come home.'"

"Why do you always worry about what the people say? Suppose they were
to say: 'What sort of a man is this? His wife was gone for a year, and
on the second night after her return, he runs off to the inn'?"

Hansei, unable to parry this thrust, stared at her in surprise. At last
he said: "I think I'll go, after all. You won't think hard of it, will
you?"

"Go, if you like," replied Walpurga, and Hansei hurried off. Walpurga
looked after him, while her eyes filled with tears. "Is this what I've
so longed for?" thought she to herself. "Was it for this that I thought
the minutes would never end, and felt as if I must chase the hours
away?"

Her mother came in and, gently closing the door, said: "She sleeps
sweetly."

The ruddy glow