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“ ye, dame,” said Bertram, the old forester of Lindenhayn, to his helpmate, “you know there are few things which I would deny you, but, for this notion, I wish you would be done with it, and help me to drive it out of the girl’s head. Let her know the worst at once, and be done with it; I know no good that can come out of this sort of dangling drivelling work!”

“But, husband,” replied the good woman, “cannot our Kate live just as happily with the young clerk as with the hunter? You do not know William yet,—what a fine fellow he is,—how kind-hearted”

“But no hunter for all that,” interrupted the forester. “Now dame, mark me, I say; it is better than two hundred years since my ancestors got this place, and during all that time it has been handed down from father to son without a break. Hadst thou brought me a son instead of a daughter, then it might have been all very well,—he would have become forest-ranger after me, and as for the girl she might have married whom she fancied. But matters don’t stand thus with us. I have my own fears and suspicions that the duke will speedily clear the ground of any son-in-law of mine who is not a good shot; and shall I throw my daughter away thus? No, dame Anne! As for Robert, I am not just bound to him; if he is not exactly to your liking, let the girl, by all