the
vinegar sharp, and the nut-oil balmy? Was not the butter as
sweet as a nut, the red radishes tender? What?"--VOSS'S
Louise.

"Mr. Thostrup shall see the Kammerjunker's old country-seat; to-morrow
we must go over."

Louise could not go with them, a hundred small duties chained her to the
house. The most important of them all was ironing.

"But that the house-maid can do," said Sophie. "Do come with us."

"When thou seest thy linen nice and neat in thy drawers," returned
Louise, "thou wilt certainly pardon me for remaining at home."

"Yes, thou art a glorious girl!" said Sophie; "thou dost deserve to have
been known by Jean Paul, and made immortal in one of his books. Thou
dost deserve the good fortune of being sung of by such a poet."

"Dost thou call it good fortune," answered the sister, "when the whole
world directs its attention to one person?--that must be painful!
unhappy! No, it is much better not to be remarked at all. Take my
greetings with you, and ask for my Claudius back; they have had it now a
whole half year."

"There, they have kept half my sister's library," said Sophie, smiling
to Otto. "You must know she has only two books: Mynster's Sermons, and
the 'Wandsbecker Boten.'"

The carriage rolled away through the chestnut avenue. "There upon the
hill, close by the wood, did I act the elf-maiden," said Sophie. "I was
not yet confirmed; there were strangers staying with us at the hall,
and we wandered in the beautiful moonlight through the wood. Two of my
friends and I hastened toward the hill, took hold of each other's hands
and danced in a ring. The day after, two persons of the congregation
told the preacher about three elfin-maidens, clad in white, who had
danced upon the hill in the moonlight. The elfin-maidens were we; but
that our backs were hollow as baking-troughs, and that the hill glanced
like silver, was their own invention."

"And in this oak," exclaimed Wilhelm, "when a boy, I killed the first
bird which fell from my shot. It was a crow, and was very honorably
interred."

"Yes, beneath my sister's weeping-willow," said Sophie. "We buried it
in an old chapeaubras, adorned with white bows; the grave was decorated
with peony-leaves and yellow lilies. Wilhelm, who was then a big boy,
made an oration, and Louise strewed flowers."

"You were little fools!" said the mother. "But see, who comes here?"

"O, my little Dickie, my dwarf of Kenilworth!" exclaimed Sophie, as