“Excellent well, good lady. She manages her trade and house as well as the good man Bartoläus Fleischer himself. Blithe will she be to show you her goodly ten, as I shall my eight,” he continued, walking by her side; “and Barbara—you remember Barbara Schmidt, lady—”
“My dear Barbara?—That do I indeed! Is she your wife?”
“Ay, truly, lady,” he answered, in an odd sort of apologetic tone; “you see, you returned not, and the housefathers, they would have it so—and Barbara is a good housewife.”
“Truly do I rejoice!” said Christina, wishing she could convey to him how welcome he had been to marry any one he liked, as far as she was concerned—he, in whom her fears of mincing goldsmiths had always taken form—then signing with her hand, “I have my sons likewise to show her.”
“Ah, on foot!” muttered Grundt, as a not well-conceived apology for not having saluted the young gentlemen. “I greet you well, sirs,” with a bow, most haughtily returned by Ebbo, who was heartily wishing himself on his mountain. “Two lusty, well-grown Junkern indeed, to whom my Martin will be proud to show the humours of Ulm. A fair good night, lady! You will find the old folks right cheery.”
Well did Christina know the turn down the street, darkened by the overhanging brows of the tall houses, but each lower window laughing with the glow of light within that threw out the heavy mullions and the circles and diamonds of the latticework, and here and there the brilliant tints of stained glass sparkled like jewels in the upper panes, pictured with Scripture scene, patron saint, or trade emblem. The familiar porch was reached, the familiar knock resounded on the iron-studded door. Friedel lifted his mother from her horse, and felt that she was quivering from head to foot, and at the same moment the light streamed from the open door on the white horse, and the two young faces, one eager, the other with knit brows and uneasy eyes. A kind of echo pervaded the house, “She is come! she is come!” and as one in a dream Christina entered, crossed the well-known hall, looked up to her uncle and aunt on the stairs, perceived little change on their countenances, and sank upon her knees, with bowed head and clasped hands.
“My child! my dear child!” exclaimed her uncle, raising her with one hand, and crossing her brow in benediction with the other. “Art thou indeed returned?” and he embraced her tenderly.
“Welcome, fair niece!” said Hausfrau Johanna, more formally. “I am right glad to greet you here.”
“Dear, dear mother!” cried Christina, courting her fond embrace by gestures of the most eager affection, “how have I longed for this moment! and, above all, to show you my boys! Herr Uncle, let me present my sons—my Eberhard, my Friedmund. O Housemother, are not my twins well-grown lads?” And she stood with a hand on each, proud that their heads were so far above her own, and looking still so slight and girlish in figure that she might better have been their sister than their mother. The cloud that the sudden light had revealed on Ebbo’s brow had cleared away, and he made an inclination neither awkward nor ungracious in its free mountain dignity and grace, but not devoid of mountain rusticity and shy pride, and far less cordial than was Friedel’s manner. Both were infinitely relieved to detect nothing of the greasy burgher, and were greatly struck with the fine venerable head before them; indeed, Friedel would, like his mother, have knelt to ask a blessing, had he not been under command not to outrun his brother’s advances towards her kindred.
“Welcome, fair Junkern!” said Master Gottfried; “welcome both for your mother’s sake and your own! These thy sons, my little one?” he added, smiling. “Art sure I neither dream nor see double! Come to the gallery, and let me see thee better.”