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     A small joy makes us to forget our heavy griefs
     All I did was right in her eyes
     Especial gift to listen keenly and question discreetly
     Happiness should be found in making others happy
     Have never been fain to set my heart on one only maid
     Hopeful soul clings to delay as the harbinger of deliverance
     No false comfort, no cloaking of the truth
     One Head, instead of three, ruled the Church
     Though thou lose all thou deemest thy happiness

MARGERY

By Georg Ebers

Volume 4.

CHAPTER XV.

We reached the forest lodge that evening with red faces and half-frozen hands and feet.  The ride through the deep snow and the bitter December wind had been a hard one; but the woods in their glittering winter shroud, the sharp, refreshing breath of the pure air, and a thousand trifling matters—­from the white hats that crowned every stock and stone to the tiny crystals of snow that fell on the green velvet of my fur-lined bodice—­were a joy to me, albeit my heart was heavy with care.  The evening star had risen or ever we reached the house; and out here, under God’s open heavens, among the giants of the forest and its sturdy, weather-beaten folk, it scarce seemed that it could be true that I should see my bright, young Ann sharing the sorry life of the Magister, an alien from all this world’s joys.  Those who dwelt out here in these wilds must, methought, feel this as I felt it; and so in truth it proved.  After I had taken my place at the hearth by my aunt’s side, and she had mingled some spiced wine for us with her own feeble hands, she bid me speak.  When she heard what it was that had brought me forth to the forest so late before Christmas, which we ever spent with our grand-uncle Im Huff she at first did but laugh at our Magister’s suit; but as soon as I told her that it was Ann’s earnest purpose to wed with him, she swore that she would never suffer such a deed of mad folly.

Master Peter had many times been her guest at the lodge; and she, though so small and feeble herself, loved to see tall and stalwart men, so that she had given him the name of “the little dry Bookworm,” hardly accounting him a man at all.  When she heard of his newly-gained wealth, she said:  “If instead of being the richer by these thousands he could but be the same number of years younger, lift a hundredweight more, and see a hundred miles further out into the world, I would not mind his seeking his happiness with that lovely child!”

As for my uncle, he did but hum a burly bass to the tune of the “Little wee wife.”  But, being called away, he turned to me before closing the door behind him, and asked me very keenly, as though he had been restraining his impatience for some space:  “And how about your brother?  How is it that this matter has come about?  Was not Herdegen pledged to marry Ann?”