But she quickly tore the letter open again, for she considered it her duty to show John what she had written.  But a long time passed and he did not return.  And Amrei blushed when the chatty hostess said: 

“I suppose your husband has some business at the Town-hall?”

It seemed to strike her with a strange shock to have John called her “husband” for the first time.

She could not answer, and the hostess looked at her in wonder.  She knew no other way of escaping from her strange glances than by going out in front of the house, where she sat on some piled-up boards for a long time, waiting for John.  It was, indeed, a long time before he did come back; and when at last she caught sight of him, she said: 

“When something calls you away like that again, you’ll take me with you, won’t you?”

“Oh,” he answered, “so you were afraid, were you?  Did you think I had gone off and left you?  What would you think if I were to leave you here and simply ride away?”

Amrei started, and then she said, severely: 

“I can’t say that you are very witty; in fact to joke about such a thing as that is miserably stupid.  I am sorry that you said that; for you did something that is bad for you if you realize it, and bad for you if you don’t realize it.  You talk about riding away, and think that I am to cry to amuse you.  Do you imagine, perhaps, that because you have a horse and money, you can do as you please with me?  No, your horse carried us away together, and I came with you.  What would you think if I were to say jokingly:  ‘How would it be if I left you alone?’ I am sorry that you made such a jest!”

“Yes, yes, I’ll say that you are right.  But now, forget about it.”

“No!  I talk of a thing as long as there is anything about it in me, when I am the offended person, and it is for me to stop talking about it when I choose.  And you offended yourself, too, in this matter—­I mean your real self, the person you are, and ought to be.  When any one else says anything that is not right, I can jump over it, but on you there must not be a single spot; and believe me, to joke about such a thing as that, is as if one took the crucifix yonder to play with as a doll.”

“Oho, it’s not as bad as that!  But it seems to me you can’t appreciate a jest.”

“I can appreciate one very well, as you shall see, but no such a one as that.  But now, that’s enough about it; now I have finished and shall think nothing more of it.”

This little incident showed both of them early that, with all their mutual devotion, they must be careful with each other.  Amrei felt that she had been too severe, whereas John was made to realize that it did not behoove him to make jest of Amrei’s solitary position, and of her absolute dependence upon him.  They did not say this to each other, but each of them knew that the other felt it.

The little cloud that had thus come up soon evaporated under the bright sun that now broke through it.  And Amrei rejoiced like a child when a pretty, green Bernese chaise-wagon came, with a round, padded seat in it; and before the horse had been hitched to it, she took her seat and clapped her hands with joy.