dinner.”  Joseph did as he was told with much success.  When they reached the cherry-tree beside the arbor, Braesig stood still and said:  “Now then, Joseph, give me a back—­but put your head close to the stem of the tree.”  Joseph was about to speak, but Braesig pressed down his head, saying:  “Hold your tongue, Joseph—­put your head nearer the tree.”  He then stepped on his back, and when standing there firmly, said:  “Now straighten yourself—­It does exactly!” Then seizing the lower branch with both hands, Braesig pulled himself up into the tree.  Joseph had never spoken all this time but now he ventured to remark:  “But, Braesig, they’re not nearly ripe yet.”  “What a duffer you are, Joseph,” said Braesig, thrusting his red face through the green leaves which surrounded him.  “Do you really think that I expect to eat Rhenish cherries at midsummer.  But go away now as quickly as you can and don’t stand there looking like a dog when a cat has taken refuge in a tree.”  “Ah well, what shall I do?” said Joseph, going away and leaving Braesig to his fate.

Braesig had not been long in his hiding-place, when he heard a light step on the gravel walk, and, peering down, saw Lina going into the arbor with such a large bundle of work in her arms that if she had finished it in one day it would have been difficult to keep her in sewing.  She laid her work on the table and, resting her head on her hand, sat gazing thoughtfully at the blue sky beyond Braesig’s cherry-tree.  “Ah, how happy I am,” she said to herself in the fulness of her grateful heart.  “How happy I am.  Mina is so kind to me; and so is Godfrey, or why did he press my foot under the table at dinner.  What made Braesig stare at us so sharply, I wonder?  I think I must have blushed.  What a good man Godfrey is.  How seriously and learnedly he can talk.  How decided he is, and I think he has the marks of his spiritual calling written in his face.  He isn’t the least bit handsome it is true; Rudolph is much better looking, but then Godfrey has an air with him that seems to say, ’don’t disturb me by telling me of any of your foolish worldly little vanities, for I have high thoughts and aspirations, I am going to be a clergyman.’  I’ll cut his hair short though as soon as I have the power.”  It is a great blessing that every girl does not set her heart on having a handsome husband, for otherwise we ugly men would all have to remain bachelors; and pleasant looking objects we should be in that case, as I know of nothing uglier than an ugly old bachelor.  Lina’s last thought, that of cutting Godfrey’s hair, had shown so much certainty of what was going to happen, that she blushed deeply, and as at the same moment she heard a slow dignified step approaching, she snatched up her work and began to sew busily.