’Guessed the work was going well; you sing so lightsomely to-day, Grete!  Very pretty!  And that’s Drachenfels?  Bones of the Virgins! what a bold fellow was Siegfried, and a lucky, to have the neatest lass in Deutschland in love with him.  Well, we must marry her to Siegfried after all, I believe!  Aha? or somebody as good as Siegfried.  So chirrup on, my darling!’

‘Aunt Lisbeth does not approve of my songs,’ replied Margarita, untwisting some silver threads.

‘Do thy father’s command, girl!’ said Aunt Lisbeth.

’And doing his command,
Should I do a thing of ill,
I’d rather die to his lovely face,
Than wanton at his will.’

‘There—­there,’ said Aunt Lisbeth, straining out her fingers; ’you see, Gottlieb, what over-indulgence brings her to.  Not another girl in blessed Rhineland, and Bohemia to boot, dared say such words!—­than—­I can’t repeat them!—­don’t ask me!—­She’s becoming a Frankish girl!’

‘What ballad’s that?’ said Gottlieb, smiling.

’The Ballad of Holy Ottilia; and her lover was sold to darkness.  And she loved him—­loved him——­’

‘As you love Siegfried, you little one?’

’More, my father; for she saw Winkried, and I never saw Siegfried.  Ah! if I had seen Siegfried!  Never mind.  She loved him; but she loved Virtue more.  And Virtue is the child of God, and the good God forgave her for loving Winkried, the Devil’s son, because she loved Virtue more, and He rescued her as she was being dragged down—­down—­down, and was half fainting with the smell of brimstone—­rescued her and had her carried into His Glory, head and feet, on the wings of angels, before all men, as a hope to little maidens.

’And when I thought that I was lost
I found that I was saved,
And I was borne through blessed clouds,
Where the banners of bliss were waved.’

‘And so you think you, too, may fall in, love with Devils’ sons, girl?’ was Aunt Lisbeth’s comment.

‘Do look at Lisbeth’s Dragon, little Heart! it’s so like!’ said Margarita to her father.

Old Gottlieb twitted his hose, and chuckled.

‘She’s my girl! that may be seen,’ said he, patting her, and wheezed up from his chair to waddle across to the Dragon.  But Aunt Lisbeth tartly turned the Dragon to the wall.

‘It is not yet finished, Gottlieb, and must not be looked at,’ she interposed.  ’I will call for wood, and see to a fire:  these evenings of Spring wax cold’:  and away whimpered Aunt Lisbeth.

Margarita sang: 

’I with my playmates,
In riot and disorder,
Were gathering herb and blossom
Along the forest border.’

‘Thy mother’s song, child of my heart!’ said Gottlieb; ’but vex not good
Lisbeth:  she loves thee!’

’And do you think she loves me? 
And will you say ’tis true? 
O, and will she have me,
When I come up to woo?’

‘Thou leaping doe! thou chattering pie!’ said Gottlieb.