esent day. And it was
due mainly to the stout stomachs of successive generations of these
enterprising boys that the series of experiments which Gottlieb then
began in the making of lebkuchen was brought, in the course of years,
to something like a satisfactory conclusion. But even at its best, never
was this lebkuchen at all like that of which in his hopeful youth he had
dreamed.

Herr Sohnstein, to be sure, spoke highly of it, and even managed to eat
of it quite considerable quantities. Gottlieb did not imagine that
Herr Sohnstein could have in this matter any ulterior motives; but Aunt
Hedwig much more than half suspected that in order to please her by
pleasing her brother he was making a sacrifice of his stomach to his
heart. If this theory had any foundation in fact, it is certain that
Herr Sohnstein did not appreciably profit by his gallant risk of
indigestion; for while Aunt Hedwig by no means seemed disposed to
shatter all his hopes by a sharp refusal, she gave no indication
whatever of any intention to permit her ripe red lips to utter the
longed-for word of assent. Aunt Hedwig, unquestionably, was needlessly
cruel in her treatment of Herr Sohnstein, and he frequently told her so.
Sometimes he would ask her, with a fine irony, if she meant to keep him
waiting for his answer until her brother had made lebkuchen as good as
the lebkuchen of Nuernberg? To which invariably she would reply that, in
the first place, she did not know of any question that he ever had asked
her that required an answer; and, in the second place, that she did mean
to keep him waiting just precisely that long. And then she would add,
with a delicate drollery that was all her own, that whenever he got
tired of waiting he might hire a whole horse-car all to himself and ride
right away. Ah, this Aunt Hedwig had a funny way with her!

And so the years slipped by; and little Minna, who laughed at the
passing years as merrily as Aunt Hedwig laughed at Herr Sohnstein, grew
up into a blithe, trig, round maiden, and ceased to be little Minna at
all. She was her mother over again, Gottlieb said; but this was not by
any means true. She did have her mother's goodness and sweetness, but
her sturdy body bespoke her father's stronger strain. Aunt Hedwig, of
this same strain, undisguisedly was stocky. Minna was only comfortably
stout, with good broad shoulders, and an honest round waist that anybody
with half an eye for waists could see would be a satisfa