Can share his heart with me.”
“I would I were as old as you are,” she said one day, when, dreaming thus, she entered Mariann’s cottage.
“Be glad that your wish is not the truth,” said the other. “When I was of your age, I was merry, and weighed down at the Plaster Mill a hundred and thirty-two pounds.”
“You are always the same, always cheerful. It is not so with me.”
“Ah, simpleton! Do not fret away your youth; no one can give it back to you. Age comes of itself.”
Mariann easily succeeded in consoling Barefoot. Only when she was alone an unwonted timidity oppressed her. What could it be?
Strange rumors were in the village. For some days it had been said, that in Endringen there was to be a wedding, such as there had not been in the memory of man. The eldest daughter of Dominic and Amelia was to marry a rich timber-merchant of Murgthal, they said, and there were to be gay doings, such as they never had before.
The day came ever nearer. When two girls met, one would draw the other behind the hedge, or the haystack, and there was no end to the talk, although they were both in a prodigious hurry. They said people were coming from Oberland and from Murgthal, and from thirty leagues distant, for the family had extensive connections. At the village fountain there was lively excitement. No young girl would acknowledge that she was going to have a new dress, that she might enjoy the surprise the next day when it appeared. In the hurry of question and answer, they forgot to draw their water, and Barefoot, who came last, went first away, bearing her full bucket. What was the dance to her? And yet she seemed to hear music in the air all around her.
The next day she had much to do in the house, and constant running, for she had to dress Rose. Rose had a quantity of hair, and the most was to be made of it. To-day she would try something new; something in the Maria Theresa style, as here in the country they called a braid of fourteen strands. Barefoot succeeded in accomplishing this difficult work of art; but scarcely was it finished, when Rose, in a rage, tore it down, and looked wildly out from the hair hanging over her face. Still, she was beautiful and stately in this disorder, and she knew it. “I will never marry into a family where they keep less than four horses,” she said, haughtily. In fact, she had many suitors among the farmers’ sons, but she seemed not inclined to choose among them. She now decided upon the country custom of two braids down her back, ornamented with red ribbons reaching to the ground. She stood there ready dressed, and wanted only a nosegay to complete her adornment. She had allowed her own flowers to wither; and, spite of all Barefoot could say, she must rob all the blossoms from the beautifully cherished flowers in the window. At length she also demanded the little dwarf Rose-Mariè; but Barefoot would be torn to pieces before she would cut that. Rose scoffed and laughed, scolded, and called her “only a simple Goose-girl, who was now so selfish, though they had taken her into the family through charity.” Barefoot said not a word, but she gave Rose a look which made her cast down her eyes. Just then a red rosette had become loose upon her left shoe, and Amrie knelt down to fasten it; when partly in joke, and partly through repentance of her ill-nature, Rose exclaimed, “I have taken a fancy, Barefoot, that you shall also go to the dance to-day.”
“Do not laugh at me,” said Barefoot. “What have I done?”