food.

She was lost in these thoughts, in her new strange pain, when the
stable-girl came in out of breath and said, "I've just let in a strange
gentleman, who asks leave to wait a little while till the weather's not
so bad. He's come across country, he says."

"Well," said the Raven-mother, "is he a proper sort of a person?"

"Oh yes!" The stable-girl brought her hand down on her thigh in
emphatic assurance. "He's certainly a gentleman, even if he is wet
through." All laughed loudly. The sudden burst of laughter rose up as
unexpectedly as a covey of birds startled by a pedestrian in a quiet
stubble-field.

Before it had died away, Beate said to the girl, "Bring him in and do
what you can for him."

The Raven-mother also rose, saying, "We'll have a look at him. Didn't
he give his name?"

"Engraver Kosch, he said three times--and how he said it!" answered the
sturdy girl, grinning. "And he said other things too ... that he came
from White of Egg, he said, and Ashes or ... I don't know what all
else." The girl rubbed her arms and kept on grinning. "I was to tell
you that, he said. He was brewed and baked, he said just the same way
as the people up here."

The courtier jumped up, crying, "We can't have him in here--he's a
lunatic! It's quite impossible, my dear Mamsell Rauchfuss."

Beate smiled. "If he's brewed and baked in the same way as all of us,
why not?"

"Because that's foolishness," said the Sperbers' nephew.

"Foolish?" said the much-courted one, laughing. "Are we then from
White of Egg?"

"But, my dear Mamsell," said Herr von Mengersen, "these are things ..."

"And he said more ... other kinds of things," said the maid, laughing.

"Be quiet!" commanded the courtier.

"No, no," said the girl, "I wasn't going to say anything. That was just
for us."

"Go!" cried the courtier, stretching out his long, soft hands as if to
ward off some danger. "Remember that there are young ladies present."

"Leave the room, you stupid creature!" growled the Sperbers' nephew.
"Off with you!"

Still grinning, the maid disappeared. Beate laughed. It seemed as if
fresh air had come into the room. She drew a long breath. How much
merrier and more amusing were the farm men and maids among themselves
than her suitors! What sort of things had she herself heard among them?
They were not strong on ceremony, and said what they thought.

The Raven-mother came back into the room. "Quite a respectable man,"
she said with so