And he resorted to a good way, not only of pacifying his mother, but also of causing her to rejoice in her innermost soul.  He reported to her how all the warnings she had given him, and all the ways of testing a girl she had enumerated, had found exact correspondence in Amrei, as if she had been made to order.  And she could not help laughing, when he concluded: 

“You must have had the last in your head upon which the shoes up above are made; for they fit her who is to run about in them as if they were made for her.”  The mother let herself be quieted.

On the Saturday morning previous to the family gathering, Damie made his appearance; but he was immediately dispatched back to Haldenbrunn to procure all the necessary papers from the magistrate in the town-hall.

The first Sunday was an anxious day at Farmer Landfried’s.  The old people had accepted Amrei, but how would it be with the rest of the family?  It is no easy matter to enter a large family of that kind unless the way is paved with horses and wagons, and all sorts of furniture and money, and a number of relatives.

Many wagons arrived that Sunday at Farmer Landfried’s from the uplands and lowlands.  There came driving up brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, and all their relations.

“John has a wife, and he brought her straight home without her parents, without a clergyman, and without the authorities having had a word to say in the matter.  She must be a beauty that he found behind a hedge somewhere!”

This is what all of them were saying.

The horses on the wagons also suffered for what had happened at Farmer Landfried’s.  They received many a lash, and when they kicked, they suffered all the more for it; for whoever was driving whipped them until his arm was tired.  This caused many a wrangle with the wives, who sat beside the drivers and protested and scolded about such a reckless, cruel way of driving.

A little fortress of carriages stood in Farmer Landfried’s courtyard, and in the house the entire large family was assembled.  There they sat together in high water-boots, or in clouted laced-boots, and with three-cornered hats, some worn with the corner, others with the broadside forward.  The women whispered among themselves, and then made signs to their husbands, or else said to them quietly:  “Just let us alone—­we will drive the strange bird out all right.”  And a bitter, jeering laugh arose when it was rumored here and there, that Amrei had been a goose-girl.

At last Amrei entered; but she could not offer, her hand to anybody.  For she was carrying a large bottle of red wine under her arm, and so many glasses, besides two plates of cake, that it seemed as if she had seven hands.  Every finger-joint appeared to be a hand; but she put everything so gently and noiselessly on the table, on which her mother-in-law had spread a white cloth, that everybody looked at her in wonder.  Then, silently and without any signs of trepidation, she filled all the glasses, and said: