"And I have a remembrance from both of you," said Amrei, and she brought out the necklace and the piece of money wrapped in paper. "You gave me that the last time you were in our village."
"See there—you lied to me, you told me that you had lost it," cried the
Farmer to his wife, reproachfully.
"And here," continued Amrei, holding out to him the groschen in its paper cover; "here's the piece of money you gave me when I was keeping geese on the Holderwasen, and gave you a drink from my jug."
"Yes, yes, that's all right! But what does it all mean? What you've had given you, you may keep," said the Farmer.
Amrei stood up and said:
"I have one thing to ask you. Let me speak quite freely for a few minutes, may I?"
"Yes, why not?"
"Look—your John wanted to take me with him and bring me here as a maid. At any other time I would have been glad to serve in your house, indeed, rather than anywhere else. But now it would have been dishonest; and to people to whom I want to be honest all my life long, I won't come for the first time with a lie in my mouth. Now everything must be as open as the day. In a word, John and I love each other from the bottom of our hearts, and he wants to have me for his wife."
"Oho!" cried the Farmer, and he stood up so quickly that one could easily see that his former helplessness had been only feigned. "Oho!" he called out again, as if one of his horses were running away.
But his wife put out her hand and held him, saying: