"He got a proper good lecture from you, I will wager."
"No," said Frau Nüssler, "he didn't. I don't meddle in the affair. His father is coming, to-day, and he is the nearest to him, as the Frau Pastorin says. And I told Jochen, decidedly, he ought not to talk so much about it, for he has quite changed his nature, of late, and is always troubling himself, and talking about things that are none of his business. Keep still, Jochen!"
"Yes, Jochen, keep still!"
"And my two little girls, I scarcely know them again; after the sermon, they cried all the way home, and now they keep out of the way so shyly, and speak so short to each other, and they used always to go about together arm in arm, and if one had anything on her heart the other quickly knew it. Ah, my house is all topsy-turvy!"
"Mother," said young Jochen, rising suddenly from his chair, "it is what I have said before, but I will say it once more; you shall see, the boys have put something into their heads."
"What should they put into their heads, Jochen?" said Frau Nüssler, rather sharply.
"Love-affairs," said Jochen, sitting down again in his corner. "My blessed mother always said: A candidate and a governess in the same house--you shall see, Gottlieb and Mining.
"Now, Jochen, so you talk and talk! The Lord keep you in your senses! If I thought that was the case, the candidate should be turned out of the house, and the other after him. Come out here, Bräsig, I have something to say to you."
When they were outside, Frau Nüssler took him to the garden, and sat down with him in the arbor.
"Bräsig," said she, "I cannot listen to this everlasting chatter of Jochen's; he has got it from Rudolph, who used to talk with him so much, last winter, in the evenings, and now he has got in the habit of it, and cannot break off. Now tell me honestly,--you promised that you would look after them,--have you ever had any idea of such a thing?"