Page:The German Novelists (Volume 3).djvu/40

30 But in truth it was far more difficult in those good times to get an introduction to the young ladies of a family, than it now is; and the poor youth’s destitute situation added to this not a little. No morning visits were then in vogue; a tête-à-tête might have ruined a young lady’s reputation; and the whole list of balls, masquerades, routes, suppers, walks, rides, &c. with a thousand other modern inventions to facilitate the intercourse of the sexes, were then unknown. The nuptial chamber was the sole place permitted to young lovers for a more confidential explanation of their feelings. Yet in spite of such restraint, things were carried on much in their usual manner. Weddings, christenings, and burials followed each other, particularly in a city like Bremen, as they do now, and were the only licensed occasions for entering into new compacts of the kind, so as to illustrate the old proverb, which says that “no marriage is consummated, but some other is sure to be planned.” The underplot of appealing to the lady’s maid, or other subordinate persons, was here beyond Frank’s ingenuity,—the mother retained none in her service; she carried on her own little trade of spinning yarn, and might have served her daughter instead of her shadow. It was next to impossible, so circumstanced, for the lover to find an occasion of declaring himself; though he shortly invented a language, meant only to serve