house belong to your parents?"

"No, I got it with my wife. That's to say, we still owe a mortgage of
two hundred florins on it, but the farmer who holds it, doesn't press
us."

"Your wife can buy you another house, and you ought to consider
yourself lucky to have so good-looking a wife."

"Yes, and that's what makes me sorry to give her up," complained
Hansei. "However, there are only three hundred and sixty-five days in a
year--but that's a good many, after all."

"And as many nights in the bargain," said Baum, laughing. Poor Hansei
shuddered.

"Yes, indeed!" said he. He felt that politeness required an answer on
his part.

In the mean while, Walpurga had asked her mother and Stasi to leave her
alone with the child. She was kneeling beside the cradle and wetted the
pillow with her tears. She kissed the child, the coverlet, and cradle,
and then, getting up, said: "Farewell! A thousand times, farewell!" She
had dried her tears, and was about to leave the room, when the door
opened from without and her mother entered.

"I'll help you," said she. "You'll be either twice as happy, or twice
as miserable, when you return, and will make us just as happy or as
miserable as you are."

Then she took Walpurga's left hand in hers, and, in a commanding voice,
said: "Put your right hand on your child's head!"

"What's that for, mother?"

"Do as I bid you. Swear by your child's head and by the hand I hold in
mine, that you'll remain good and pure, no matter what temptations may
assail you. Remember you're a wife, a mother, a daughter! Do you swear
this with all your heart?"

"I do, mother, so help me God! But there's no need of such an oath."

"Very well," said the mother. "Now walk around the cradle three times
with your face turned from it. I'll lead you; don't stumble. Now you've
taken the child's homesickness from it, and I'll take good care of it.
Take my word for that."

She then led Walpurga into the room and, handing her the great loaf of
bread and the knife, said:

"Cut a piece for yourself, before you go. May God bless it for your
sake, and when you've reached your journey's end, let the bread that
you've brought from home be the first morsel you eat. That'll kill the
feeling of strangeness; and now, farewell."

They remained there in silence, holding each other by the hand.

Walpurga found it wondrous strange that Hansei was walking about in the
garden with the lackey and forgetting her. Just then, h