"Don't be so sad," prayed Annele, tenderly. "I will honor the picture. I will hang it up at once over my bed. You are not sad now,--are you? You have been so kind and good to-day! I assure you, the picture will help me recall your mother whenever I look at it."
Lenz turned hot and cold by turns. Thus could Annele at her pleasure raise him to the highest happiness or wound him in his tenderest affections. Weeks and months passed in this way. Joy predominated, however, for a softness had come over Annele never known in her before. Even Pilgrim said one day to Lenz: "Most men are glad to be proved in the right, but I rejoice to see I was mistaken."
"So? In what?"
"There is no learning a woman. Annele has that in her which may make your life happy. Very likely it is all the better she should not be as dreamy and soft-hearted as you are."
"Thank you. Heaven be praised for bringing this to pass!" cried Lenz.
The two friends held each other long and closely by the hand.
CHAPTER XXI.
A GREAT WEDDING WHICH LEAVES A BITTER TASTE BEHIND.
Lenz of the Morgenhalde is to be married! This is the wedding day of Annele of the Lion! Through the whole valley and far beyond its limits this was the one subject of conversation. The same household talked at one time of Annele only, and then only of Lenz. Their names had not yet been joined together. Not till the wedding was fairly over would Annele of the Lion be called Annele Lenz.
The day was clear after a heavy fall of snow, and the sleighing excellent. The jingling of bells and cracking of whips sounded from every hill and valley. At least a hundred sleighs stood before the Lion inn on the wedding morning. Strange horses were quartered in every stall. Many a solitary cow was startled by a visit from a span of noble horses. It is not for the like of a poor cow, shut up in her solitary winter quarters, to know what is going on in the world; that privilege is reserved for men. Such an event was indeed seldom witnessed in the village. Even the sick old grandmothers who lived on side streets, where they could see nothing and hear nothing but the whips and the sleigh-bells, insisted on being dressed and set up at the window.