“No!” exclaimed Amrei, “I won’t have that!  Just as little as I wish that John should take me for his wife without your blessing, just so little do I wish that the sin should be in our hearts, that we should both be waiting for you to die.  I scarcely knew my parents, I cannot remember them—­I only love them as one loves God, without ever having seen Him.  But I also know what it is to die.  Last night I closed Black Marianne’s eyes; I did what she asked me to do all my life long, and yet now that she is dead, I sometimes think:  How often you were impatient and bitter toward her, and how many a service you might have done her!  And now she is lying there, and it is all over; you can do nothing more for her, and you can’t crave her forgiveness for anything.—­I know what it is to die, and I will not have—­”

“But I will!” cried the old man; and he clenched his fists and set his teeth.  “But I will!” he shouted again.  “You stay here, and you belong to us!  And now, whosoever likes may come, and let him say what he pleases.  You, and no one but you, shall have my John!”

The mother ran to the old man and embraced him; and he, not being accustomed to it, called out in surprise: 

“What are you doing?”

“Giving you a kiss.  You deserve it, for you are a better man than you make yourself out to be.”

The old man, who all this time had a pinch of snuff between his fingers which he did not want to waste, took it quickly, and then said: 

“Well, I don’t object,” but he added:  “But now I shall dismiss you, for I have much younger lips to kiss, which taste better.  Come here, you disguised parson.”

“I’ll come, but first you must call me by name.”

“Well, what is your name?”

“You need not know that, for you can give me a name yourself—­you know what name I mean.”

“You’re a clever one!  Well, if you like, come here, daughter-in-law.  Does that name suit you?”

In reply Amrei flung herself upon him.

“Am I not to be asked at all?” complained the mother with a radiant face.

The old man had become quite saucy in his joy.  He took Amrei by the hand, and asked, in a satirical imitation of a clergyman’s voice: 

“Now I demand of you, honorable Cordula Catherine, called Dame Landfried, will you take this—­” and he whispered to the girl aside: 

“What is your Christian name?”

“Amrei.”

Then the Farmer continued in the same tone: 

“Will you take this Amrei Josenhans, of Haldenbrunn to be your daughter-in-law, and never let her have a word to say, as you do to your husband, feed her badly, abuse her, oppress her, and as they say, bully her generally?”

The old fellow seemed beside himself; some strange revulsion had taken place within him.  And while Amrei hung around the mother’s neck, and would not let her go, the old man struck his red cane on the table and cried: