f lebkuchen,
but went back with a sad tenderness to the happy time that had come so
quickly to so cruel an end.

But the spark was kindled, and presently the fire burned. When he told
the good Hedwig that he had bought the honey at last, that excellent
woman--albeit not much given to display of the tender emotions--shed
tears of joy. She was a sturdy, thick-waisted, stout-ankled person, this
Aunt Hedwig, with a cheery red face, and prodigiously fine white teeth,
and very bright black eyes; and her taste in dress was such that when
of a Sunday she went to the Church of the Redemptorist Fathers, in Third
Street, she was more brilliant than ever King Solomon was in all his
glory, in her startling array of vivid reds and greens and blues. But
beneath her violent exterior of energetic color she had a warm and
faithful heart, as little Minna knew already, and as her brother
Gottlieb had known for many a long good year. Therefore was Gottlieb now
gladdened by her hearty show of sympathy; and he returned with a good
will the sounding smack that she gave him with her red lips, and the
strong hug that she gave him with her stout arms.

It was at sight of this pleasing manifestation of affection that Herr
Sohnstein, the notary--who was present in the little room back of the
shop where it occurred--at once declared that he meant to buy some honey
too. And Aunt Hedwig, smiling so generously as to show every one of her
fine white teeth, promptly told him that he had better be off and buy
it, because perhaps he could buy at the same place some hugs and kisses
too: at which sally and quick repartee they all laughed. Herr Sohnstein
long had been the declared lover of Aunt Hedwig's, and long had been
held at arm's-length (quite literally occasionally) by that vigorous
person; who believed, because of her good heart, that her present duty
was not to consult her own happiness by becoming Frau Sohnstein, but
to remain the Fraeulein Brekel, and care for her lonely brother and her
brother's child.

Being thus encouraged, Gottlieb bought the honey forthwith; and with
Aunt Hedwig's zealous assistance set about boiling it and straining it
and kneading it into a sticky dough, all in accordance with the wise old
baker's directions which he so long had treasured in his mind. And when
the dough was packed in earthen pots, over which bladders were tied, all
the pots were set away in the coolest part of the cellar, as far from
the great oven as pos