e the trees of the Oak Wood--a fine ample German
moon, like a Diana of Rubens. Close to our sides passed numerous young
couples, holding hands, clasping waists, chattering gayly, or walking
in silence with a blonde head laid on a burly shoulder. One of
my companions pointed out a specially stalwart and graceful young
apprentice, whose elbow, supported on a rustic bench, was bent around
a mass of beautiful golden hair.

"An eligible _verlobter_," said he.

I thought of Perrette and the tall young man who had helped pull her
milk-cart. My friend continued: "Betrothal hereabouts is a serious
institution. The girl who loses her _verlobter_ becomes a widow. Woe
betide her if she dreams of replacing him too early! She will find
herself followed by ill looks and contemptuous tongues: she even runs
the risk of having nobody to marry better than a dead man, if we may
believe the history of Bettina of Ettlingen."

"The history of Bettina of Ettlingen? That sounds like the title to a
ballad."

"It is a recent history, which you would take for a legend of the
twelfth century."

[Illustration: ON THE FIRST STEP.]

I cannot help it. In face of that word _legend_ my mind stops and
stares rigidly like a pointer dog. The moment was favorable for a good
story: the sky was covered with flocked clouds, behind which the ample
German moon, shorn of half its brightness, took suddenly the pale
gilded tint of sauerkraut. The wandering lovers, half effaced in the
gloom, looked like straying shades in an Elysium.

"Ettlingen is between Carlsruhe and Rastadt, an hour's walking as you
go to Kehl. The flowers grow there without thinking about it, and sow
their own seed. It is therefore a simple thing to be a gardener, and
Bettina's father, the florist, attended entirely to his pipe, leaving
the cares of business to his apprentice, whose name was Nature.
Bettina, as became the daughter of a gardener, was a kind of rose:
Wilhelm, the baker's young man, would have thrown himself into the
furnace for her. But there came along Fritz, the dyer, who had been
in France and who wore gloves. She continued a while to promenade with
Wilhelm under the chestnut trees which surround the fortifications
of Ettlingen, but one night she suddenly withdrew her hand: 'You had
better find a nicer girl than I am: I do not feel that I could make
you happy.' Wilhelm disappeared from the country. His departure, which
was the talk of Ettlingen, caused Bettina more rem