her than to seduce her.  He worked all the harder, took especial pains with every detail, and tried to earn the commendation that, if he were not rich already, he could not fail to become so with such aptitude; this, he thought, would have as much weight with the parents as many thousand francs.  He did not think of that terrible saying—­“Only a servant.”  But, his fellow-servants had eyes in their heads, too, and long before Uli had begun to think of anything, they had noticed Elsie’s indiscreet conduct and had teased Uli about it.  More and more they ascribed his activity to the intention of becoming son-in-law.  The change since the trip was not hidden from them.  They invented divers accounts of what had happened, taunted Uli to his face and calumniated him behind his back.  Whenever he required anything new of them they interpreted it to mean that he wanted to get himself valued at their expense; therefore they took it ill, became unruly, and said they would take him down a peg.  They lay in wait for Uli and Elsie wherever they could, tried to disturb or to witness their accidental or intentional meetings, and to play all kinds of tricks on them; and they would have dearly loved to uncover some serious scandal, but Uli gave them no opportunity.  With him the scale still hung in the balance.  At times Elsie and his life on Slough Farm became so bitter to him that he would have liked to be a hundred miles away.  But the girl grew more and more in love with him, bought him gifts at every opportunity, gave him more than he wanted to accept, and acted in such a silly way with him that it finally attracted her parents’ attention.  Joggeli grumbled:  there you had it now; now you could see the scheme Uli was working; but he would put a spoke in his wheel.  At the same time he did nothing; and in secret he thought that his son, who so often tricked his father, would be served just right if Elsie played the fool and disgraced him by having to marry a servant.

But the mother took it very much to heart and talked to Elsie:  she should not be so silly with Uli; she must think what folks would say and how they would gossip about her.  It was truly not seemly for a rich girl to treat a servant like a sweetheart.  No, she had nothing against Uli, but still he was only a servant, and Elsie surely didn’t want to marry a servant.

Then Elsie blubbered:  everything she did was wrong; in God’s name, they were always complaining of her; now they accused her of being too stuck up, now of making herself too cheap; when she said a kind word to a servant, folks made such a to-do that it couldn’t be worse if she had lost her good name; nobody wanted her to have any pleasure, and everybody was down on her; it would be best for her if she could die soon.  And Elsie blubbered more and more vehemently, until she was all out of breath, and her mother had to undo her bodice hastily, thinking in all seriousness that Elsie was going to die.  Then the good mother