Amrie made a sign to the dog; he came running back and jumped upon her. As they went into the house together, she said, “Yes, it was good, it was right of thee to remain with me, that I might not be alone; but come in, I must write.”
She wrote a long letter to the Mayor of Holdenbrunn, thanking the whole parish for what they had done for her, and promising to take an orphan child from thence, when she was able. She besought the Mayor that Mariann’s hymn-book might be placed beneath her head. When she had sealed her letter, she pressed her lips upon it, and said, “Now I have done with all the living in Holdenbrunn.” But she tore her letter open again, for she thought it her duty to show John what she had written.
He was a long time gone, and Amrie blushed painfully when the landlady said to her,—
“Your husband has probably business in the town.” To hear John for the first time called her husband, sank deeply into her heart; she could not answer, and the hostess looked at her with astonishment. To escape her curious glances, Amrie went out and sat down upon a pile of boards; the dog sat opposite, waiting for John; she caressed him and looked deeply into his honest eyes. No animal seeks and bears the steady, penetrating eye of man, like the dog, but he also at last turns away.
How full of riddles, and yet also how manifest is the world!
Amrie went with the dog into the stable, where the horse was eating. “Yes, dear Silver Trot,” she said, “enjoy thy breakfast and bring us well home, and God grant that all may be well!”
It was a long time before John came back; when at last she saw him, she ran to meet him, and said,—
“Promise me that if you have business again on the road, you will take me with you?”
“What! were you afraid? Did you think I had left you? Ah! what if I had left you sitting there, and had ridden off?”
Amrie trembled from head to foot. Then she said very seriously, “You are not witty, and if you intended by that a joke, it was dreadfully stupid. I pity you if you said it seriously. You would have done something very wicked if you would have ridden away and thought to have left me—you thought, perhaps, as you had a horse and money, that you were the master. No! your horse brought us here together; I consented to come with you; what would you think if I made such a joke, and said, ‘What if I left you sitting there!’ I pity you, that you could say it.”