"But what will you do, then?" asked Mining, and laid her hand hastily on his arm. "Ah, don't be a soldier!"
"God forbid! Don't think of such a thing! No, I will be a farmer."
"Confounded scamp!" said Bräsig, up in the tree.
"Yes, my dear little Mining," said Rudolph, drawing her down on the bench beside him, "I will be a farmer, a right active, skilful farmer, and you, my little old dear Mining, shall help me about it."
"She shall teach him to plough and to harrow," said Bräsig.
"I, Rudolph?" asked Mining,
"Yes, you, my dear, sweet child,"--and he stroked the shining hair, and the soft cheeks, and lifted the little chin, and looked full in the blue eyes,--"if I only knew, with certainty, that in a year and a day you would be my little wife, it would be easy for me to learn to be a skilful farmer. Will you, Mining, will you?"
And the tears flowed from Mining's eyes, and Rudolph kissed them away, here and there, over her cheeks, down to her rosy mouth, and Mining laid her little round head on his breast, and when he gave her time to speak, she whispered softy that she would, and he kissed her again, and ever again, and Bräsig called, half aloud, from the tree, "But that is too much of a good thing! Have done!"
And Rudolph told her, between the kisses, that he would speak with his father, to-day, and remarked also, by the way, it was a pity Bräsig was not there; he could help him finely in his undertaking, and he knew the old man thought a great deal of him.
"Confounded scamp!" said Bräsig, "catching away my tench!"