"But where's the Rathsherr?" asked the Colonel.
"He's coming," said my father, "but how and when Heaven only knows, for, when he promised me he would come, he winked and put on a look of his I well know, and that I call his 'secret' look."
When the Herr Amtshauptmann arrived, the Miller stood at the door with a black velvet cap on his head, and his wife stood by his side in a new black dress, and he bowed and she curtsied, and the Herr Amtshauptmann said: "Well, Miller Voss, how are you to-day?"
"Quite well, thank you, Herr," said the Miller, letting the step down.
The old Herr leant over to his friend and said: "The Miller is all right again; he has grown wiser, and has resigned the management of his affairs, and given it into Fieka's hands."
Now came the coach. The ladies got out, and Friedrich carried my mother into the room: he had often to carry her afterwards.
The hay-cart pulled up. Everybody jumped down and entered, I amongst them; but the little Droi's ran into the garden first, and fell at once upon the unripe gooseberries.
The minister was in the room waiting to perform the marriage ceremony, and close to him stood Heinrich and Fieka. How pretty Fieka was! How pretty a bride looks! The minister read the service, and his best address; he knew three, each one better than the other, and the price was arranged accordingly. The "Crown" address was the finest and the dearest, it cost one thaler sixteen groschen; then came the "Ivy Wreath," it cost one thaler; and lastly the "Periwinkle Wreath," which was for the poor, and cost only eight groschen. To-day he read the "Crown" address, for the Miller would have it so. "My Fieka," he had said, "wishes to have a quiet wedding and she shall have her way; but we must have everything of the best that is proper for a wedding." And so it was. And when the address was over, the beautiful lady went up to Fieka, and gave her a kiss, and threw a gold chain round her neck with a locket hanging from it, and on the locket was engraved the day when Fieka had begged the Colonel to set her father free.
The Colonel had gone up to Heinrich, and when he pressed the bridegroom's hand, his father's eyes rested upon him so affectionately that the Herr Amtshauptmann took his old friend's hand and said: "Eh, my friend, what say you?" He probably knew more of what had happened than we did.
The feast now began. Strüwingken helped the soup, and Luth the roasts; Hanchen and the Miller's two maid-servants waited. Scarcely had the Miller swallowed his first plate of chicken broth, when he got up, and made an impressive speech to the company, but looking all the time only at the Herr Amtshauptmann. "He had, he said, asked the company in a homely way to a wedding without music; his Fieka had wished it so, and he hoped the ladies and gentlemen would not take it amiss, but although they had not got any music----"