"Why, Rudolph."
"You mean Rudolph?"
"Yes, of course; whom do you mean, then?"
"I? I meant Gottlieb."
"No, no!" cried Mining, throwing her arms again about her sister's neck, "how is that possible? Why, we don't mean the same one, after all!"
"Dear heart!" exclaimed Lining, "and what misery we have made ourselves!"
"And now it is all right!" cried Mining, dancing about the room, "it is all right now!"
"Yes, Mining, it is all right now," and Lining also danced about the room. And Mining fell upon her sister's neck again, this time in joy.
Yes, when one touches the latch, in time, and shoves back the separating wall, then the hearts come together again, and all is right, even if there is not such a rejoicing as here in the little chamber. First they wept, and then they danced about the room, then they sat down one in the other's lap, and talked it all over, and blamed themselves for stupidity, that they had not noticed how it stood with them, and wondered how it was possible that they should not have come to an explanation before, and then each confessed how far she had gone with her cousin, and that the young men had not yet spoken openly, and they were both half inclined to scold them, as the cause of all the trouble. And Lining said she had been, all along, in great doubt; but since last Sunday, she had been convinced that Mining cared for Gottlieb, for otherwise why should she have cried so? and Mining said she could not help crying, because Rudolph had done such a dreadful thing, and she supposed Lining was crying for the same reason. And Lining said that what troubled her was because her poor Gottlieb was served so. But it was all right now; and when the dinner-bell rang, the little twin-apples tumbled down stairs, rosy-red, and arm in arm, and Bräsig, who had seated himself with his back to the light that he might judge the better of their appearance, stared in astonishment at their bright eyes and joyous faces, and said to himself: "How? they are shy? They are in trouble? They are in love? They look just ready for a frolic."
Upon the ringing of the dinner-bell, entered Bräsig's proselyter, the candidate Gottlieb Baldrian. Lining grew red, and turned away, not in ill humor, but on account of the confession she had made upstairs, and Bräsig said to himself, "This strikes me as a very curious thing; Lining is affected. How can it be possible? and he such a scarecrow!"