“Then I shall come and whistle for you,” she answered, smiling.
And then they parted.
As in a dream Paul walked through the dark wood. The fir trees rustled softly, the moonbeams were dancing on the moss.
“It is strange,” he thought, “that they all tell me their woes,” and he concluded from that that he was the happiest of them all. “Or the unhappiest,” he added, meditatively, but then he laughed mysteriously and threw his cap high in the air.
When he stepped out into the light on the heath he saw two shadows flitting before him which disappeared in the misty distance.
Immediately after he heard something rustle in the juniper bushes.
He turned quickly round and saw another shadowy couple, who seemed to sink into the ground behind a bush.
“The whole heath seems alive to-day,” he murmured, and added, smiling, “of course, it is mid summer night.”
Soon after him the twins came home with wild hair and flushed faces. They declared the vicar had told them their fortunes by cards till midnight. They would soon get husbands.
Giggling, they slipped away into their bedroom.