"Are your father and mother coming soon?"
"Yes," said the eldest boy, "they are close by. And grandmother is coming too, and Frau von Rambow, who came yesterday."
"Ah, Frida?" cried Louise, "that is good!" And it was not long before Rudolph and Mining came up, and they looked like a fair day in summer, when the sunlight lies broad over the fields, and the shadows are short, and men are working in their shirt-sleeves. Rudolph has become a capable fellow who counts for something among his colleagues, for he does not carry on his farming in the old-fashioned, narrow ways, and has regard to the welfare of other people, and of the whole country, as well as to his own profit. And behind them came Frau Nüssler, and Frida. The Frau von Rambow looked to the right, and the left, and her face grew sad, and when she came to the arbor and the first greetings were over, Louise called to her oldest daughter, "Frida, bring auntie a chair!" for Frida had once said, she could never sit again on that bench, where she had sat in such anguish.
Frau Nüssler went up to Habermann:
"How are you, Brother Karl?"
"Finely!" cried Habermann, in a loud voice, for Frau Nüssler had grown very hard of hearing, "and you?"
"Very well, all but my hearing; that is worse. They say it comes from taking cold. Nonsense! how should I take cold? I will tell you, Karl, it came from Jochen; for he talked and talked so much, at the last, and I was quite worn out. Well, he could not help it, it was in his nature."
Then came Pastor Gottlieb and Lining, with three children. And the children played together, and their elders talked together, and at supper time the tables were laid, out of doors, one for the older people by themselves, and one for the children by themselves, and Louise's eldest daughter presided at the children's table, and Grandfather Habermann at the other, and both with a very different rule from our old Häuning. How friendly and pleasant it was!
And as we old subjects of Habermann were sitting together merrily, rejoicing in his government, who came along the garden path? Fritz Triddelsitz and the little assessor. What an uproar! How many questions were asked and answered, in a few moments!
All at once, Triddelsitz caught sight of me: "Fritz, where did you come from?"