Suddenly a happy thought came to her. She wiped away her tears and said to her husband:
“I beg you, Lukas, go to our old neighbor, the burgomaster’s wife. She is wealthy. I’m sure she hasn’t forgotten that I was godmother to her child. Go and ask her if she will be godmother to mine.”
“I don’t think she will,” Lukas answered, “but I’ll ask her.”
With a heavy heart he went by the fields and the barns that had once been his own and entered the house of his old friend, the burgomaster.
“God bless you, neighbor,” he said to the burgomaster’s wife. “My wife sends her greeting and bids me tell you that God has given us a little daughter whom she wants you to hold at the christening.”
The burgomaster’s wife looked at him and laughed in his face.
“My dear Lukas, of course I should like to do this for you, but times are hard. Nowadays a person needs every penny and it would take a good deal to help such poor beggars as you. Why don’t you ask some one else? Why have you picked me out?”
“Because my wife was godmother to your child.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it? What you did for me at that time was a loan, was it? And now you want me to give you back as much as you gave me, eh? I’ll do no such thing! If I were as generous as you used to be, I’d soon go the way you have gone. No! I shall not walk one step toward that christening!”
Without answering her, Lukas turned and went home in tears.