Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/97

 not—to count by wersts than by miles. In walking, our Quintus furthermore got by heart the few fields on which the grain was already reaped.

But now roam slower, Fixlein, through His Lordship's garden of Hukelum; not, indeed, lest thy coat sweep away any tulip-stamina, but that thy good mother may have time to lay her Cupid's-band of black taffeta about her smooth brow. I am grieved to think my fair readers take it ill of her, that she means first to iron this same band; they cannot know that she has no maid; and that to-day the whole Preceptorial dinner—the money purveyances the guest has made over to her three days before—is to be arranged and prepared by herself, without the aid of any Mistress of the Household whatever; for indeed she belongs to the Tiers État, being neither more nor less than a gardener's widow.

You can figure how this true, warm-hearted mother may have lain in wait all morning for her Schoolman, whom she loved as the apple of her eye; since, on the whole populous Earth, she had not (her first son, as well as her husband, was dead) any other for her soul, which indeed overflowed with love; not any other but her Zebedäus. Could she ever tell you aught about him, I mean aught joyful, without ten times wiping her eyes? Nay, did she not once divide her solitary Kirmes (or Churchale) cake between two mendicant students, because she thought Heaven would punish her for so feasting, while her boy in Leipzig had nothing to feast on, and must pass the cake-garden like other gardens, merely smelling at it?

"Dickens! Thou already, Zebedäus!" said the mother, giving an embarrassed smile, to keep from weeping, as the son, who had ducked past the window, and crossed the grassy threshold without knocking, suddenly entered. For