“That’s just it, Auntie!  Just because I’m only a poor girl, it’s proper for me to hold myself high and not let myself be treated like a handful of fodder.  I think I have more right to it than many a high-born girl, no matter whether she’s the daughter of a lord or a farmer.”

“But, Freneli,” protested Uli, “how can I change that, and do I have to pay for it?  You know well in your heart that I love you, and I knew just as little of what your aunt had in mind as you; and so it’s not right of you to vent your anger on me.”

“Ah,” said Freneli, “now I begin to see that the whole thing was a put-up job; otherwise you wouldn’t excuse yourself before I accused you.  That’s worse than ever, and I won’t listen to another word; I won’t let myself be caught like a fish in a net.”

With that Freneli again tried to get up and run out; but her aunt held her fast by her bodice, saying that she was the wildest and most suspicious creature under the sun.  Since when did she set traps for her?  It was true that she had wanted to visit her cousin about this affair, and for that reason she had taken them both along.  But what she had in mind nobody knew, not even Joggeli, much less Uli.  She had commissioned her cousin to worm Uli’s secrets out of him, and it was true that Uli had praised Freneli to the skies, so that her cousin had told her that Uli would take Freneli any time—­the sooner the better; but that Uli was afraid to say anything to Freneli for fear she’d hold up Elsie against him.  At that she had thought that she would speak, if Uli was afraid to; for that Uli didn’t suit the girl, nobody could convince her; her eyes weren’t in the back of her head yet.  So Uli couldn’t help it at all.

“But then why did he come into the room today while I was packing up and want to give me a kiss?  He never did that before.”

“Oh,” said Uli, “I’ll just tell you.  After I had talked with old master today you were in my mind more than ever, and I thought I’d give everything I had if I knew whether you loved me and would have me.  I didn’t know a thing about the farm.  Then when I found you alone, something came over me, I didn’t know what; I felt a sort of longing in my arm; I had to touch you and ask for a kiss.  At first I thought I had had one; but then later I thought it couldn’t have been, or else you; wouldn’t have pushed me out into the room so wildly.  I thought you didn’t care for me, and that made me so sad at heart that I wished Christmas was here and I could go away; indeed I was going far, far away down into Italy, so that nobody would ever hear anything of me.  And I feel so still, Freneli, if you won’t have me.  I don’t want the lease, and I’ll go away and away, as far as my feet will carry me, and no one shall ever know where I’ve gone.”