Cousin Maud called it her darling’s condemnation supper.  She had watched the cooking of every dish in the kitchen, and chosen the finest wine out of the cellar.  Yet the victual might have been oatmeal porridge, and the noble liquor the smallest beer, and it would have been no matter to our great, albeit melancholy gladness.  And indeed, no man could have gazed at the pair now come together again after so many perils, and not have felt his heart uplifted.  Ah! and how dear to me were those twain!  They had learnt that life was as nothing to either of them without the other, and their hearts meseemed were henceforth as closely knit as two streams which flow together to make one river, and whose waters no power on earth can ever sunder.  They sat with us, but behind great posies of flowers, as it were in an isle of bliss; yet were they in our midst, and showed how glad it made them to have so many loving hearts about them.  Notwithstanding her joy and trouble Ann forgot not her duty as “watchman,” and threatened Uncle Christian when he would take more than he should of the good liquor.  He, however, declared that this day was under the special favor of the Saints, and that no evil could in any wise befall him.  My Forest-uncle and Master Pernhart had been found in discourse together, and the matter of which they spoke was my Cousin Gotz.  And how it gladdened the father to speak of his far-off son!  More especially when Pernhart’s lips overflowed with praise of the youth to whom his only child owed her early death.

Most marvellous of all was the Magister.  Herdegen’s return to his beloved robbed Master Peter of his last hope; nevertheless his eyes had never rested on her with fonder rapture.  Verily his faithful heart was warmed as it were by the happiness which surrounded her as with a glory, and indeed it was not without some doubts that I saw the worthy man, who was wont to be so sober, raise his glass again and again to drink to Ann, whether she marked him or not, and drain his glass each time in her honor.  My Uncle Christian likewise filled his cup right diligently, and seeing him quaff it with such lusty good will I feared lest he should keep us all night at table, when the time was short for Ann and my brother to have any privy speech together.  But that good man forgot not, even over the wine-jar, what might pleasure other folks; and albeit it was hard for him to quit a merry drinking-bout he was the first to move away.  We were alone by sundown.  The Magister had been carried to bed and woke not till noon on the morrow.

The plighted couple sat once more in the oriel where they had so often sat in happier days, and seeing them talking and fondling in the gathering dusk, meseemed for a while that that glad winter season had come again in which they had rejoiced in the springtide of their love.