; and they would have dearly loved to uncover
some serious scandal, but Uli gave them no opportunity. With him the
scale still hung in the balance. At times Elsie and his life on Slough
Farm became so bitter to him that he would have liked to be a hundred
miles away. But the girl grew more and more in love with him, bought him
gifts at every opportunity, gave him more than he wanted to accept, and
acted in such a silly way with him that it finally attracted her
parents' attention. Joggeli grumbled: there you had it now; now you
could see the scheme Uli was working; but he would put a spoke in his
wheel. At the same time he did nothing; and in secret he thought that
his son, who so often tricked his father, would be served just right if
Elsie played the fool and disgraced him by having to marry a servant.

But the mother took it very much to heart and talked to Elsie: she
should not be so silly with Uli; she must think what folks would say and
how they would gossip about her. It was truly not seemly for a rich girl
to treat a servant like a sweetheart. No, she had nothing against Uli,
but still he was only a servant, and Elsie surely didn't want to marry a
servant.

Then Elsie blubbered: everything she did was wrong; in God's name, they
were always complaining of her; now they accused her of being too stuck
up, now of making herself too cheap; when she said a kind word to a
servant, folks made such a to-do that it couldn't be worse if she had
lost her good name; nobody wanted her to have any pleasure, and
everybody was down on her; it would be best for her if she could die
soon. And Elsie blubbered more and more vehemently, until she was all
out of breath, and her mother had to undo her bodice hastily, thinking
in all seriousness that Elsie was going to die. Then the good mother
held her peace again; for she did not want to scold Elsie to death. She
merely complained at times to Freneli that she didn't know what to do.
If she scolded, Elsie was capable of doing something foolish; but if she
let things go and something really did happen, then she would get the
blame for everything, and people would ask why hadn't she done something
in time. Of Uli she couldn't complain; he was acting very sensibly, and
she even thought the whole thing was disagreeable to him. And she would
be sorry to send him off packing without notice, before they had more
grounds of complaint; for, if she did, Joggeli would be the first to
accuse her