"You will tell your mother, Margredel, to come without fail to-morrow before noon; Marie-Rose will get you up a good dinner, and we will celebrate the betrothal together; it is the greatest festival in one's life; and if Uncle Daniel could also come we should be very glad of it."
"Very well, Father Frederick," he said, and then he walked swiftly away.
We went in again with tears in our eyes. And thinking of my poor Catherine, I said to myself:
"There are still some pleasant days in life; why is my good, my excellent wife no longer with us?"
It was the only bitter moment I had during that day.
VIII
You understand, George, that after this, all went on well. I had nothing more to think of but my service. Jean Merlin and his mother Margredel came to pass every Sunday at our house.
It was autumn, the opening of the season for hunting and fishing; the time for bird catching and snare setting in the woods, and for fishing baskets and nets at the river.
The old watchmaker, Baure, of Phalsbourg, arrived, as usual, with his great fishing rod and his bag for the trout; Lafleche, Vignerol, and others, with their bird calls and limed twigs; the gentlemen from Saverne with their dogs and their guns; they whistled, they yelled; they shot hares and sometimes a deer; then all these people came to take lunch and refresh themselves at the forester's house; the smell of frying and of good omelettes, with ham, reached to the garden, and we turned a penny or two at the house that way.
As you know all these things, I have no need to tell you about them.