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