distinguish the red roses from the yellow ones?
The garden was perfectly still, the sea seemed to slumber, and, if a wave
lapped the shore, it was with a low, almost inaudible murmur.

A butterfly hovered like a dream over her roses, and a lizard glided
noiselessly, like a sudden thought, into a chink between the stones at
her feet.  Not a breath of air stirred, not a leaf or a twig fell from
the trees.

Yonder, as if slumbering under a blue veil, lay the Calabrian coast,
while nearer and more distant, but always noiselessly, ships and boats,
with gently swelling sails, glided over the water.  Even the cicadas
seemed to sleep, and everything around was as still, as horribly still,
as if the breath of the world, blooming and sparkling about her, was
ready to fail.

Xanthe sat spellbound beside the sleeper, while her heart beat so rapidly
and strongly that she fancied it was the only sound audible in this
terrible silence.

The sunbeams poured fiercely on her head, her cheeks glowed, a painful
anxiety overpowered her, and certainly not to rouse Phaon, but merely to
hear some noise, she coughed twice, not without effort.  When she did so
the third time, the sleeper stirred, removed from his face the end of the
cloak that had covered his head, slowly raised himself a little, and,
without changing his recumbent posture, said simply and quietly, in an
extremely musical voice:

"Is that you; Xanthe?"

The words were low, but sounded very joyous.

The girl merely cast a swift glance at the speaker, and then seemed as
busily occupied with her roses as if she were sitting entirely alone.

"Well?"  he asked again, fixing his large dark eyes upon her with an
expression of surprise, and waiting for some greeting.

As she remained persistently silent, he exclaimed, still in the same
attitude:

"I wish you a joyful morning, Xanthe."  The young girl, without answering
this greeting, gazed upward to the sky and sun as long as she could
endure the light, but her lips quivered, and she flung the rose she held
in her hand among its fellows in her lap.

Phaon had followed the direction of her look, and again broke the
silence, saying with a smile, no less quietly than before:

"Yes, indeed, the sun tells me I've been sleeping here a long time; it is
almost noon."

The youth's composure aroused a storm of indignation in Xanthe's breast.
Her excitable blood fairly seethed, and she was obliged to put the utmost
constraint upon herself not to throw her roses in his face.

But she succeeded in curbing her wrath, and displaying intense eagerness,
as she shaded her eyes with her hand and gazed toward some ships that
appeared in view.

"I don't know what is the  matter with you," said Phaon, smoothing with
his right hand the black hair that covered half his forehead.  "Do you
expect the ship from Messina and my father already?"

"And my cousin Leonax" replied the girl, quickly, putting a strong
emphasis upon the last name.

Then she again gazed into the distance.  Phaon shook his head, and both
remained silent for several minutes.  At last he raised himself higher,
turned his full face toward the young girl, gazed at her as tenderly and
earnestly as if he wished to stamp her image upon his soul for life,
gently pulled the long, floating sleeve of her peplum, and said:

"I didn't think it would be necessary--but I must ask you something."

While he spoke, Xanthe rested her right elbow on her knee, drummed on her
scarlet lips with her fingers, and clasped the back of the marble bench
with her out-stretched left arm.

Her eyes told him that she was ready to listen, though she still uttered
no word of reply.

"I have a question to ask you, Xanthe!"  continued Phaon.

"You?"  interrupted the girl, with visible astonishment.

"I, who else?  Jason told me yesterday evening that our uncle Alciphron
had wooed you for his son Leonax, and was sure of finding a favorable
reception from old Semestre and your poor father.  I went at once to ask
you if it were true, but turned back again, for there were other things
to be done, and I thought we belonged to each other, and you could not
love any one so well as you loved me.  I don't like useless words, and
cannot tell you what is in my heart, but you knew it long ago.  Now you
are watching for your cousin Leonax.  We have never seen him, and I
should think--"

"But I know," interrupted the girl, rising so hastily that her roses fell
unheeded on the ground--"but I know he is a sensible man, his father's
right-hand, a man who would disdain to riot all night with flute-playing
women, and to woo girls only because they are rich."

"I don't do that either," replied Phaon.  "Your flowers have dropped on
the ground--"

With these words the youth rose, bent over the roses, gathered them
together, and offered them to Xanthe with his left hand, while trying to
clasp her fingers in his right; but she drew back, saying:

"Put them on the bench, and go up to wash the sleep from your eyes."

"Do I look weary?"

"Of course, though you've lain here till noon."

"But I have scarcely slept for several days."

"And dare you boast of it?"  asked Xanthe, with glowing cheeks.  "I am
not your mother, and you must do as you choose, but if you think I
belonged to you because we played with each other as children, and I was
not unwilling to give you my hand in the dance, you are mistaken.  I care
for, no man who turns day into night and night into day."

At the last words Xanthe's eyes filled with tears, and Phaon noticed it
with astonishment.

He gazed at her sadly and beseechingly, and then fixed his eyes on the
ground.  At last he began to suspect the cause of her anger, and asked,
smiling:

"You probably mean that I riot all night?"

"Yes!"  cried Xanthe; she withdrew her hand for the second time, and half
turned away.

"Oh!"  he replied, in a tone of mingled surprise and sorrow, "you ought
not to have believed that."

"Xanthe turned, raised her eyes in astonishment, and asked

"Then where have you been these last nights?"

"Up in your olive-grove with the three Hermes."

"You?"

"How amazed you look!"

"I was only thinking of the wicked fellows who have robbed many trees of
their fruit. That savage Korax, with his thievish sons, lives just beside
the wall."

For your sake, Xanthe, and because your poor father is ill and unable to
look after his property, while Mopsus and your fishermen and slaves were
obliged to go in the ship to Messina, to handle the oars and manage the
sails, I always went up as soon as it grew dark."

"And have you kept watch there?"

"Yes."

"So many nights?"

"One can sleep after sunrise."

"How tired you must be!"

"I'll make up my sleep when my father returns."

"They say he is seeking the rich Mentor's only daughter for your wife."

"Not with my will, certainly."

"Phaon!"

"I am glad you will give me your hand again."

"You dear, good, kind fellow, how shall I thank you?"

"Anything but that!  If you hadn't thought such foolish things about me,
I should never have spoken of my watch up yonder.  Who could have done it
except myself, before Mopsus came back?"

"No one, no one but you! But now--now ask your question at once."

"May I?  O Xanthe, dear, dear Xanthe, will you have me or our cousin
Leonax for your husband?"

"You, you, only you, and nobody else on earth!" cried the girl, throwing
both arms around him.  Phaon clasped her closely, and joyously kissed her
brow and lips.

The sky, the sea, the sun, everything near or distant that was bright and
beautiful, was mirrored in their hearts, and it seemed to both as if they
heard all creatures that sing, laugh, and rejoice.  Each thought that, in
the other, he or she possessed the whole world with all its joy and
happiness.  They were united, wholly united, there was nothing except
themselves, and thus they became to each other an especially blissful
world, beside which every other created thing sank into nothingness.

Minute after minute passed, nearly an hour had elapsed, and, instead of
making garlands, Xanthe clasped her arms around Phaon's neck; instead of
gazing into the distant horizon, she looked into his eyes; instead of
watching for approaching steps, both listened to the same sweet words
which lovers always repeat, and yet never grow weary of speaking and
hearing.

The roses lay on the ground, the ship from Messina ran into the bay
beside the estate, and Semestre hobbled down to the sea to look for
Xanthe, and in the place of the master of the house receive her
favorite's son, who came as a suitor, like a god.

She repeatedly called the girl's name before reaching the marble bench,
but always in vain.

When she had at last reached the myrtle grove, which had concealed the
lovers from her eyes, she could not help beholding the unwelcome sight.

Xanthe was resting her head on Phaon's breast, while he bent down and
kissed her eyes, her mouth, and at last--who ever did such things in her
young days?--even her delicate little nose.

For several minutes Semestre's tongue seemed paralyzed, but at last she
raised both arms, and a cry of mingled indignation and anguish escaped
her lips.

Xanthe started up in terror, but Phaon remained sitting on the marble
bench, held the young girl's hand in his own, and looked no more
surprised than if some fruit had dropped from the tree beside him.

The youth's composure increased the old woman's fury, and her lips were
just parting to utter a torrent of angry words, when Jason stepped as
lightly as a boy between her and the betrothed lovers, cast a delighted
glance at his favorites, and bowing with comic dignity to Semestre cried,
laughing:

"The two will be husband and wife, my old friend, and ought to ask your
blessing, unless you wickedly intend to violate a solemn vow."

"I will--I will!  When did I--" shrieked the house-keeper.

"Didn't you," interrupted Jason, raising his voice--"didn't you vow this
morning that you would prepare Phaon's wedding-feast with your own hands
as soon as you yourself offered a sacrifice to the Cyprian goddess to
induce her to unite their hearts?"

"And I'll stick to it, so surely as the gracious goddess--"

"I hold you to your promise!"  exclaimed Jason.  "Your sucking-pig has
just been offered to Aphrodite.  The priest gladly accepted it and
slaughtered it before my eyes, imploring the goddess with me, to fill
Xanthe's heart with love for Phaon."

The house-keeper clenched her hands, approached Jason, and so plainly
showed her intention of attacking him that the steward, who had assailed
many a wild-boar, retreated--by no means fearlessly.

She forced him back to the marble bench, screaming:

"So that's why the priest found no word of praise for my beautiful pig!
You're a thief, a cheat!  You took my dear little pig, which all the
other gods might envy the mother of Eros, put in its place a wretched
animal just like yourself, and falsely said it came from me.  Oh, I see
through the whole game!  That fine Mopsus was your accomplice; but so
true as I--"

"Mopsus has entered our service," replied Jason, laughing; "and, if our
Phaon's bride will permit, he wants to wed the dark-haired Dorippe.
Henceforth our property is yours."

"And ours yours," replied Xanthe--"Be good-natured, Semestre; I will
marry no man but Phaon, and shall soon win my father over to our side,
rely upon that."

The house-keeper was probably forced to believe these very resolute
words, for, like a vanquished but skilful general, she began to think of
covering her retreat, saying:

"I was outwitted; but, what I vowed in a moment of weakness.  I have now
sworn again.  I am only sorry for your poor father, who needed a
trustworthy son, and the good Leonax--"

At this moment, as if he had heard his name and obediently appeared at
her call, the son of Alciphron, of Messina, appeared with Phaon's father,
Protarch, from the shadow of the myrtle-grove.

He was a gay, handsome youth, richly and carefully dressed.  After many a
pressure of the hand and cordial words of welcome, Phaon took the young
girl's hand and led her to the new-comers, saying:

"Give me Xanthe for a wife, my father.  We have grown up together like
the ivy and wild vine on the wall, and cannot part."

"No certainly not," added Xanthe, blushing and nestling closely to her
lover's side, as she gazed beseechingly first at her uncle, and then at
the young visitor from Messina.

"Children, children!"  cried Protarch, "you spoil my best plans.  I had
destined Agariste, the rich Mentor's only child, for you, foolish boy,
and already had come to terms with the old miser.  But who can say I
will, or this and that shall happen to-morrow?  You are very sweet and
charming my girl, and I don't say that I shouldn't be glad, but--mighty
Zeus! what will my brother Alciphron say--and you, Leonax?"

"I?" asked the young man, smiling.  "I came here like a dutiful son,
but I confess I rejoice over what has happened, for now my parents will
hardly say 'No' a second time, when I beg them to give me Codrus's
daughter, Ismene, for my wife."

"And there stands a maiden who seems to like to hear such uncivil words
better than Helen loved Paris's flattering speeches!"  exclaimed Phaon's
father, first kissing his future daughter's cheek and then his son's
forehead.

"But now let us go to father," pleaded Xanthe.

"Only one moment," replied Protarch, "to look after the boxes the people
are bringing.--Take care of the large chest with the Phoenician dishes
and matron's robes, my lads."

During the first moments of the welcome, Semestre had approached her
darling's son, told him who she was, received his father's messages of
remembrance, kissed his hand, and stroked his arm.

His declaration that he wished another maiden than Xanthe for his wife
soothed her not a little, and when she now heard of matrons' dresses, and
not merely one robe, her eyes sparkled joyously, and, fixing them on the
ground, she asked:

"Is there a blue one among them?  I'm particularly fond of blue."

"I've selected a blue one, too," replied Protarch.  "I'll explain for
what purpose up yonder.  Now we'll go and greet my brother."

Xanthe, hand in hand with her lover, hurried on in advance of the
procession, lovingly prepared her father for what had happened, told him
how much injustice he, old Semestre, and she herself had done poor Phaon,
led the youth to him, and, deeply agitated, sank on her knees before him
as he laid her hand in her playfellow's, exclaiming in a trembling voice:

"I have always loved you, curly-head, and Xanthe wants you for her
husband.  Then I, too, should have a son!--Hear, lofty Olympians, a good,
strong, noble son!  Help me up, my boy.  How well I feel!  Haven't I
gained in you two stout legs and arms?  Only let the old woman come to me
to-day!  The conjurer taught me how to meet her."

Leaning on Phaon's strong shoulder he joyously went out of the house,
greeted his handsome young nephew as well as his brother, and said:

"Let Phaon live with Xanthe in my house, which will soon be his own, for
I am feeble and need help."

"With all  my heart," cried  Protarch, "and it will be well on every
account, for, for--well, it must come out, for I, foolish graybeard--"

"Well?"  asked Lysander, and Semestre curved her hand into a shell and
held it to her ear to hear better.

"I--just look at me--I, Protarch, Dionysius's son, can no longer bear to
stay in the house all alone with that silent youth and old Jason, and so
I have--perhaps it is a folly, but certainly no crime--so I have chosen a
new wife in Messina."

"Protarch!"  cried Lysander, raising his hands in astonishment; but Phaon
nodded to his father approvingly, exchanging a joyous glance with Xanthe.

"He has chosen my mother's younger sister," said Leonax.

"The younger, yes, but not the youngest," interrupted Protarch.  "You
must have your wedding in three days, children.  Phaon will live here in
your house, Lysander, with his Xanthe, end I in the old one yonder with
my Praxilla.  Directly after your marriage I shall go back to Messina
with Leonax and bring home my wife."

"We have long needed a mistress in the house, and I bless your bold
resolution!"  exclaimed Jason.

"Yes, you were always brave," said the invalid.

"But not so very courageous this time as it might seem," answered
Protarch, smiling.  "Praxilla is an estimable widow, and it was for her
I purchased in Messina the matron's robes for which you asked, Semestre."

"For her?"  murmured the old woman.  "There is a blue one among them too,
which will be becoming, for she has light brown hair very slightly mixed
with gray.  But she is cheerful, active, and clever, and will aid Phaon
and Xanthe in their young house-keeping with many a piece of good
advice."

"I shall go to my daughter in Agrigentum," said Semestre, positively.

"Go," replied Lysander, kindly, "and enjoy yourself in your old age on
the money you have saved."

"Which my father," added Leonax, "will increase by the sum of a thousand
drachmae.

"My Alciphron has a heart!"  cried the house-keeper.

"You shall receive from me, on the day of your departure, the same sum
and a matron's blue robe," said Lysander.

Shortly after the marriage of Xanthe and Phaon, Semestre went to live
with her daughter.

The dike by the sea was splendidly repaired without any dispute, for the
estate once more belonged to the two brothers in common, and Xanthe found
in Praxilla a new, kind mother.

The marble seat, on which the young people's fate was decided, was called
by the grandchildren of the wedded pair, who lived to old age in love and
harmony, "the bench of the question."




ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Absence of suffering is not happiness
Laughing before sunrise causes tears at evening
People see what they want to see
Seems most charming at the time we are obliged to resign it
Wrath has two eyes--one blind, the other keener than a falcon's






THE ELIXIR.

By Georg Ebers


Every Leipziger knows well the tall gabled house in the Katherinenstrasse
which I have in mind.  It stands not far from the Market Place, and is
particularly dear to the writer of this true story because it has been in
the possession of his family for a long time.  Many curious things have
happened there worthy of being rescued from oblivion, and though my
relatives would now like to relieve me of this task, because I have found
it necessary to point out to certain ingenuous ones among them the truth
which they were endeavoring to conceal, I rejoice that I have sufficient
leisure to chronicle for future generations of Ueberhells the wonderful
life and doings of their progenitor as I learned them from my grandmother
and other good people.

So here, then, begins my story.

Of old, the aforementioned house was known as "The Three Kings," but in
no otherwise was it distinguished from its neighbours in the street save
through the sign of the Court apothecary on the ground floor; this hung
over the arched doorway, and gay with bright colour and gilding
represented the three patron Saints of the craft:  Caspar, Melchior, and
Balthasar.

This house in the Katherinenstrasse continued to be called "The Three
Kings," although, soon after the death of old Caspar Ueberhell, the sign
was removed, and the shop closed.  And many things happened to it and the
house which ran counter to the usual course of events and the wishes of
the worthy burghers.

Gossip there had been in plenty even during the lifetime of the old
Court apothecary whose only son Melchior had left his father's house
and Leipsic not merely to spend a few years in Prague, or Paris or Italy
like any other son of well-to-do parents who wished to perfect himself
in his studies, but, as it would seem, for good and all.

Both as school-boy and student Melchior had been one of the most gifted
and most brilliant, and many a father, whose son took a wicked delight
in wanton and graceless escapades, had with secret envy congratulated old
Ueberhell on having such an exceptionally talented, industrious and
obedient treasure of a son and heir.  But later not one of these men
would have exchanged his heedless scrapegrace of a boy for the much
bepraised paragon of the Court apothecary, since, after all, a bad son
is better than none at all.

Melchior, in fact, came not home, and that this weighed on the mind of
the old man and hastened his death was beyond doubt; for although the
stately Court apothecary's rotund countenance remained as round and
beaming as the sun for three years after the departure of his boy, it
began gradually to lose its plumpness and radiance until at length it was
as faded and yellow as the pale half moon, and the cheeks that had once
been so full hung down on his ruff like little empty sacks.  He also
withdrew more and more from the weighing house and the Raths-keller where
he had once so loved to pass his evenings in the company of other worthy
burghers, and he was heard to speak of himself now and then as a "lonely
man."  Finally he stayed at home altogether, perhaps because his face and
the whites of his eyes had turned as yellow as the saffron in his shop.
There he left Schimmel, the dispenser, and the apprentice entirely in
charge, so that if any one wished to avoid the Court apothecary that was
the surest place.  When, in the end, he died at the age of fifty-six, the
physicians stated that it was his liver--the seat of sorrow as well as of
anger--which had been overtaxed and abused.

It is true that no one ever heard a word of complaint against his son
pass his lips, indeed it was certain that to the very last he was well
acquainted with his son's whereabouts; for when he was asked for news,
he answered at first: "He is finishing his studies in Paris," later:
--"He seems to have found in Padua what he is seeking," and towards the
end: "I think that he will be returning very soon now from Bologna."

It was also noticeable that instead of taking advantage of such
questioning to give vent to his displeasure he would smile contentedly
and stroke his chin, once so round, but then so peaked, and those who
thought that the Court apothecary would diminish his legacy to his truant
son, learned to know better, for the old man bequeathed in an elaborate
will, the whole of his valuable possessions to Melchior, leaving only to
the widow Vorkel, who had served him faithfully as housekeeper after the
death of his wife, and to Schimmel, the dispenser, in the event of the
shop being closed, a yearly stipend to be paid to the end of their days.
To his beloved daughter-in-law, the estimable daughter of the learned Dr.
Vitali, of Bologna, the old man left his deceased wife's jewels, together
with the plate and linen of the house, mentioning her in the most
affectionate terms.

All of which surprised the legal gentlemen and the relatives and
connections and their wives and feminine following not a little, and what
put the finishing stroke to the disgust of these good folk, especially to
such of them as were mothers, was that this son and heir of an honoured
and wealthy house had married a foreigner, a frivolous Italian, and that
too without so much as an intimation of his intention.

With the will there was a letter from the dead man to his son and one to
the worthy lawyer.  In the latter he requested his counsellor to notify
his son, Melchior Ueberhell, of his death, and, in case of his son's
return home, to see him well and fairly established in the position which
belonged to him as the heir of a Leipsic burgher and as Doctor of the
University of Padua.

These letters were sent by the first messenger going south over the Alps,
and that they reached Melchior will be seen from the fresh surprises
contained in his answer.

He commissioned Anselmus Winckler, an excellent notary, and formerly his
most intimate school friend, to close the apothecary shop and to sell
privately whatever it contained.  But a small quantity of every drug was
to be reserved for his own personal use.  He also, in his carefully
chosen diction begged the honourable notary to allow the Italian
architect Olivetti, who would soon present himself, to rebuild the old
house of "The Three Kings" throughout, according to the plan which they
had agreed upon in Bologna.  The side of the house that faced the street
would not, be hoped, prove unpleasing, as for the arrangement of the
interior, that was to be made in accordance with his own taste and needs,
and to please himself alone.

These wishes seemed reasonable enough to the lawyer, and as the Italian
architect, who arrived a few weeks later in Leipsic, laid before him a
plan showing the facade of a burgher's house finished with a stately
gable which rose by five successive steps to its peak crowned by a statue
of the armed goddess Minerva with the owl at her feet, no objection could
be made to such an addition to the city, although some of the clergy did
not hesitate to express their displeasure at the banishment of the Three
Saints in favor of a heathen goddess, and at the height of the middle
chimney which seemed to have entered the lists against the church towers.
However, the rebuilding was put in hand, and, of course, the business had
to be wound up and the shop closed before the old front was torn down.

Schimmel, the gray-haired dispenser, married the widow Vorkel, who had
kept house for the late Herr Ueberhell.  These two might have related
many strange occurrences to the cousins and kin had they chosen, but he
was a reserved man, and she had been so sworn to silence, and had lived
through such an agitating experience before the death of the old man that
she repulsed all questioners so sharply that they dared not return to the
charge.

The old housekeeper as she watched the deserted father grow indifferent
to what he had to eat and drink--though he had once been so quick to
appreciate the dishes which she prepared so deftly--and neglectful of the
attentions which he had been wont to pay to the outside world, became
embittered towards Melchior whom she had carried in her arms and loved
like her own child.  In former times Herr Ueberhell had been accustomed
now and then to invite certain friends to dine with him, and these guests
had praised her cooking, but later, and more especially after the death
of his cousin and colleague, Blumentrost, who had also been his master,
he had asked no one into his well-appointed house.

This retirement of the dignified and hospitable burgher was undoubtedly
caused by the absence of his son, but in a very different way to what
people supposed; for although the old man longed for his only child, he
was very far from resenting his absence; indeed the widow Vorkel herself
knew that it was the father who had dissuaded the son from returning from
Italy until he had reached the goal for which he was striving with
unwearied energy.

She also knew that Melchior gave the old man precise information of his
progress in every letter, and that when her master turned over the care
of the shop to Schimmel, the dispenser, it was only because he had
arranged a laboratory for himself on the first floor, where, following
the directions received in his son's letters, he worked with his
crucibles and retorts, pots and tubes, early and late before the fire.
Yet despite this, the housekeeper saw that the longing for his son was
gnawing at the old man's heart, and had she been able to write she would
have let Melchior know how things stood and begged him to return to
Leipsic.  "But there ought to be no need to tell him," she would reflect
in her leisure moments, "he must know it himself," and for this reason
she would force herself as well as she could to be angry with him.

Thus the years passed.  Nevertheless, her anger flew to the winds when
one day a messenger arrived bringing a little package from Italy and the
master called her into the laboratory.  Then the old withered love
suddenly came to life once more and put forth new leaves and buds, for
what she saw was indeed something wonderful; the Court apothecary held
out to her in his carefully washed hands a sheet of gray paper on which
in red crayon was an exquisite drawing of a beautiful young woman with a
lovely child on her lap.  Then, having charged her not to speak of it to
any one, he confided to her that this beautiful woman was Melchior's
young wife, and the little boy their first-born and his grandchild who
would carry on the name of Ueberhell.  He had given his consent to his
son's marriage with the daughter of his master in Bologna and now he--old
Caspar Ueberhell--was the happiest of men, and when the doctor returned
to him with wife and child and the thing for which he was so earnestly
searching, why, he would not envy the emperor on his throne.  When the
widow Vorkel noticed the tears that were streaming down the old man's
sunken cheeks, her eyes too began to overflow, and after that she often
crept to the chest where the portrait was kept to gaze on the little one
and to press her lips on the same spot whence the grandfather's had
already worn away some of the red crayon.

Herr Ueberhell's joy had been so great that now the longing for his son
took deeper hold of him, and he lost strength day by day, yet Frau Vorkel
could not persuade him to see a physician.  He often, however, inhaled
deep draughts of a concoction that he had made in the laboratory with his
son's letter before him, and as he seemed to derive no benefit from it he
would distil it again and mix with it new drugs.

One evening-after having spent the whole day in the laboratory--he
retired unusually early, and when Frau Vorkel went into his room to carry
him his "nightcap" he forgot his usual amiable and suave manner and
growled out at her angrily: "After all these years, can't you prepare my
bed for the night without making me burn myself?  Must you be inattentive
as well as stupid?"

Never had she heard such a speech as this from her kindly master, and
when from fright she tipped the tray which she was carrying and spilled
some of the mulled wine over her gown, he cried sharply: "Where are your
wits!  First you forget to take the red hot warming-pan out of the bed
and now you old goose you spill my good drink onto the floor."

He stopped, for Frau Vorkel had set down the tray on the table in order
to wipe her eyes with her apron; then he thrust his feet out of the bed-
which was entirely contrary to his usual decorous behavior--and demanded
with flashing eyes: "Did you hear what I just said?"

The widow, greatly shocked, retreated and answered sobbing: "How could I
help hearing, and how can you bring yourself to insult an unprotected
widow who has served you long and faithfully.  .  .  ."

"I have done it, I have done it," the old man cried, his eyes glistening
with joy and pride as if he had just accomplished an heroic undertaking.