oliday, and had returned to their proud
and happy parents, who waited for them in double ranks below, radiant
with pleasure, waving their banners and Alpine roses.

It was accordingly arranged that on the following Sunday Anton should
drive us to Reischach, where there was to be a great festival, with
candles in the church as big as a man's arm: so said a woman from
Reischach. Anton was of a retiring nature, and did not like crowds,
but he would gladly drive the ladies over. And at Reischach we should
be sure to find some peasant returning that evening by Scharst, who
could carry our belongings.

Imagine us, therefore, at Reischach, the church-bell ringing for
vespers, which begin at one o'clock. We wear bouquets of carnations
and rosemary, presented to us by the family at the Hof, as correct
decorations for a festival. And Anton!--how to present him to you as
he deserves to be presented? His truthful, guileless face is his best
ornament: nevertheless, he too wears carnations and rosemary caught
in the silver cord and vieing with the silver tassels of his
broad-brimmed, low-crowned beaver hat. His rough jacket, made by the
tailor last autumn, and therefore too new to be worn on a less special
occasion, is short and loose enough to leave ample space for the
display of his _rauge_, or broad leather belt of softest chamois-skin,
worked in scrolls surrounding his name, with split peacock quills,
no little resembling Indian handicraft. His snow-white knees appear
between his short leather breeches and his bright blue knitted
stockings. These Nature's garters, when perfectly white, are regarded
as a mark of great distinction amongst the dandies, and those of our
Anton may be considered the very _knee plus ultra_.

A parliament of men--a few still in breeches with Hessian boots,
which appeared a characteristic of Reischach, but the majority, having
succumbed to modern ideas, wearing trowsers--were seated in the shadow
of a comfortable house, discussing the different stages of their rye
and flax crops. Their wives and daughters, following their natural
impulse, were already kneeling in church, confiding their cares of
kitchen and farmyard to the ever-ready ear of _Mutter Gottes_--one
dense mass of simple, believing women, in broad-brimmed beaver hats,
with here and there a conical woolen beehive as a contrast.

The church in itself, although it lacked the candles as big as a man's
arm, must truly have shone like the gate of