As Amrie, under the influence of this cheerfulness, related that she had taken service with the young Farmer Rodel, and would enter upon it in the morning, Mariann rose in the wildest anger, and, picking up a stone, she pressed it upon her breast, and cried,—
“It were a thousand times better that I had this stone within my breast than a living heart! Why cannot I always be alone! alone! Why have I suffered myself to be persuaded to admit another to my heart? But now it is past, and forever. As I cast this stone away from me, so will I cast away, henceforth, all dependence upon any human being. Thou false, faithless child! Scarcely canst thou stretch thy wings, and thou art gone. But it is better so. I am alone, and my John shall be alone. When he comes he shall remain alone. What I would have had has come to nothing.” And she ran forth to the village.
“She is a witch,” said Dami. “I will drink no more wine. Who knows whether she has not bewitched it?”
“Drink it, nevertheless,” said Amrie. “She is a strange woman, and has a heavy cross to bear. But I know how to comfort her.” Thus she consoled Dami.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SISTER OF CHARITY.
FARMER RODEL’S house was once more full of life. “Barefoot,” for so they continued to call Amrie, was helpful everywhere, and soon made herself beloved by all in the family. She could tell the young wife, who was a stranger in the village, what had been the customs of the house, and taught her to conform to the peculiarities of her nearest relatives. She knew how to render little services to the old farmer, who grumbled all day, and could not forgive himself, for having so early given up the farm. She represented to him, how much better his daughter-in-law really was, than she knew how to show; and then, when scarcely at the end of a year, the first child came, Amrie showed so much joy, and so much cleverness, in every emergency, that all in the house were full of her praise; but, after the manner of people, who are always more ready to find fault, with the smallest mistake, than to give praise for goodness.
But Amrie expected nothing, and she knew so well when to take the child to its grandfather, and when to take it away again, that he should have only pleasure therein. When she took it to show him its first tooth, the old farmer said,—
“I would make you a present of a sixpence, for the pleasure you have given me. But stay, the one you stole from me on the wedding-day,—now, you may honestly keep it.”