ch as I wish!" he interrupted, and flaming scarlet
mounted to his face, "I would be a match for ten of those lean rascals."

"I believe you," replied the girl, and her eager glance measured the
youth's broad breast and muscular arms with an expression of pride. "I
believe you, but why do you not dare? Are you the slave of that man up
there?"

"He is my father and besides--"

"What besides?" she cried, waving her hand as if to wave away a bat. "If
no bird ever flew away from the nest there would be a pretty swarm in
it. Look at my kids there--as long as they need their mother they run
about after her, but as soon as they can find their food alone they seek
it wherever they can find it, and I can tell you the yearlings there
have quite forgotten whether they sucked the yellow dam or the brown
one. And what great things does your father do for you?"

"Silence!" interrupted the youth with excited indignation. "The evil one
speaks through thee. Get thee from me, for I dare not hear that which I
dare not utter."

"Dare, dare, dare!" she sneered. "What do you dare then? not even to
listen!"

"At any rate not to what you have to say, you goblin!" he exclaimed
vehemently. "Your voice is hateful to me, and if I meet you again by the
well I will drive you away with stones."

While he spoke thus she stared speechless at him, the blood had left
her lips, and she clenched her small hands. He was about to pass her
to fetch some water, but she stepped into his path, and held him
spell-bound with the fixed gaze of her eyes. A cold chill ran through
him when she asked him with trembling lips and a smothered voice, "What
harm have I done you?"

"Leave me!" said he, and he raised his hand to push her away from the
water.

"You shall not touch me," she cried beside herself. "What harm have I
done you?"

"You know nothing of God," he answered, "and he who is not of God is of
the Devil."

"You do not say that of yourself," answered she, and her voice recovered
its tone of light mockery. "What they let you believe pulls the wires of
your tongue just as a hand pulls the strings of a puppet. Who told you
that I was of the Devil?"

"Why should I conceal it from you?" he answered proudly. "Our pious
Paulus, warned me against you and I will thank him for it. 'The evil
one,' he says, 'looks out of your eyes,' and he is right, a thousand
times right. When you look at me I feel as if I could tread every thing
that is holy under foot;