the field
path--without trampling down more of the grass than was necessary. Being
interpreted, it meant "single file", which was distressing for Elsa and
Fritz. Karl, like a happy child, gambolled ahead, and cut down as many
flowers as possible with the stick of his mother's parasol--followed
the three others--then myself--and the lovers in the rear. And above the
conversation of the advance party I had the privilege of hearing these
delicious whispers.

Fritz: "Do you love me?" Elsa: "Nu--yes." Fritz passionately: "But how
much?" To which Elsa never replied--except with "How much do YOU love
ME?"

Fritz escaped that truly Christian trap by saying, "I asked you first."

It grew so confusing that I slipped in front of Frau Kellermann--and
walked in the peaceful knowledge that she was blossoming and I was under
no obligation to inform even my nearest and dearest as to the precise
capacity of my affections. "What right have they to ask each other
such questions the day after letters of blessing have been received?" I
reflected. "What right have they even to question each other? Love which
becomes engaged and married is a purely affirmative affair--they are
usurping the privileges of their betters and wisers!"

The edges of the field frilled over into an immense pine forest--very
pleasant and cool it looked. Another signpost begged us to keep to the
broad path for Schlingen and deposit waste paper and fruit peelings in
wire receptacles attached to the benches for the purpose. We sat down
on the first bench, and Karl with great curiosity explored the wire
receptacle.

"I love woods," said the Advanced Lady, smiling pitifully into the air.
"In a wood my hair already seems to stir and remember something of its
savage origin."

"But speaking literally," said Frau Kellermann, after an appreciative
pause, "there is really nothing better than the air of pine-trees for
the scalp."

"Oh, Frau Kellermann, please don't break the spell," said Elsa.

The Advanced Lady looked at her very sympathetically. "Have you, too,
found the magic heart of Nature?" she said.

That was Herr Langen's cue. "Nature has no heart," said he, very
bitterly and readily, as people do who are over-philosophised and
underfed. "She creates that she may destroy. She eats that she may spew
up and she spews up that she may eat. That is why we, who are forced to
eke out an existence at her trampling feet, consider the world mad, and
realise the deadly