“Success! speak! what mean you?” cried Alois, eagerly, his stormy vexation melting away before the sunbeam of her encouragement.
“Why, what has the judge told you to do, to decide the case?” asked Katharina, who had heard it all from a neighbour who came home hours before, while Alois was still standing perplexed in the court.
“That I should tell him by to-morrow morning,” replied Alois, softened already by her consoling manner, “what it is which is the strongest, the richest, and the most beautiful—and how am I ever to guess all that? And what’s more,” he continued, relapsing into his former state of vexation, “that fellow Andrä Margesin has guessed it—guessed it already! and is gone off proclaiming his triumph!”
“No, father!” exclaimed Katharina, with a mocking laugh, all of fun, however, not of scorn; “you don’t mean to say you believe that great bully Andrä Margesin could have guessed the right answer?”
“But he said so! he went off telling every one so,” rejoined Alois, positively.
“Oh, you dear, good, simple father! do you really believe it is so because he boasts of it? Do rest easy; he’s not got it.”
“Well, but if he hasn’t, I haven’t either. How am I to guess such captious absurdities? Why couldn’t the man judge the thing on its merits, instead of tormenting one to this extent?” and Alois was getting cross again.
“Why, it is the best chance in the world, you couldn’t have been more favoured! As to Andrä, he’ll never guess it. Now just think what answer you’ll give.”
“Oh, I should never guess any, if I thought till doomsday! But you”—and he started with the clever thought—“you, of course, who always find a way out of every thing—what do you say?”
“Why,” answered Katharina, readily, “what is Stronger than the earth on which we stand, which bears up our houses and buildings, our rocks and mighty mountains, which all our united efforts could not suffice to move one inch from its place, and on which we all rest secure, confident that none is strong enough to displace it? What more Beauteous than spring, with its fresh, soft tints on sky and mountain, on alp[67] and mead, on blossom and flower—spring, with its promise and its hope? And what Richer than autumn, with its gifts which make us glad for all the year—its bursting ears of grain, its clustered grapes, its abundant olives and luscious fruits?”