."

Ulrich's face lightened with a pleasant smile. "Aye, Elsa is a good
girl," he answered. "Her little hands--have you ever noticed them, Herr
Pastor--so soft and dimpled."

The Pfarrer pushed aside his empty pot and leaned his elbows on the
table.

"I think--I do not think--she would say no. Her mother, I have reason
to believe--Let me sound them--discreetly." The old pastor's red
face glowed redder, yet with pleasurable anticipation; he was a born
matchmaker.

But Ulrich the wheelwright shuffled in his chair uneasily.

"A little longer," he pleaded. "Let me think it over. A man should not
marry without first being sure he loves. Things might happen. It would
not be fair to the maiden."

The Herr Pfarrer stretched his hand across the table and laid it upon
Ulrich's arm.

"It is Hedwig; twice you walked home with her last week."

"It is a lonesome way for a timid maiden; and there is the stream to
cross," explained the wheelwright.

For a moment the Herr Pastor's face had clouded, but now it cleared
again.

"Well, well, why not? Elsa would have been better in some respects, but
Hedwig--ah, yes, she, too, is a good girl a little wild perhaps--it will
wear off. Have you spoken with her?"

"Not yet."

"But you will?"

Again there fell that troubled look into those dreamy eyes. This time
it was Ulrich who, laying aside his pipe, rested his great arms upon the
wooden table.

"Now, how does a man know when he is in love?" asked Ulrich of the
Pastor who, having been married twice, should surely be experienced upon
the point. "How should he be sure that it is this woman and no other to
whom his heart has gone out?"

A commonplace-looking man was the Herr Pastor, short and fat and bald.
But there had been other days, and these had left to him a voice that
still was young; and the evening twilight screening the seared face,
Ulrich heard but the pastor's voice, which was the voice of a boy.

"She will be dearer to you than yourself. Thinking of her, all else will
be as nothing. For her you would lay down your life."

They sat in silence for a while; for the fat little Herr Pfarrer was
dreaming of the past; and long, lanky Ulrich Nebendahl, the wheelwright,
of the future.

That evening, as chance would have it, Ulrich returning to his
homestead--a rambling mill beside the river, where he dwelt alone with
ancient Anna--met Elsa of the dimpled hands upon the bridge that spans
the murmuring Muhlde, and talke