Page:The Decameron of the West (1839).djvu/167

 at this intelligence if possible exceeded her mother’s joy, and she sunk insensible on the floor of the apartment. Extreme mental suffering produced bodily disease, which threatened to cut short her existence, and her anxious mother now endeavoured to soothe her mind, and restore her to health. Meta recovered her health, so did the “King of Hops” his equanimity, saying, “Why should a saucy, portionless girl cause him any uneasiness, when there were hundreds of lovely maidens in Bremen, who would receive his addresses most favourably?”

The report of the brewer’s rejection spread rapidly through the whole town, and reached the ears of the musician in the narrow lane, who felt extreme delight, and gaily he struck the chords of his lute to a merry allegro.

As for Mother Brigitta, no sooner was her daughter restored to health than she became peevish, restless, miserable, and sunk into a state of great dejection and low spirits. All hope of rising again to her former state of affluence was now, she thought, for ever lost, and, guessing neighbour Francis to be the cause of her misfortunes, she railed most bitterly against him, compared him to the prodigal son, and asked what Meta could expect from a love-match