Damie was especially joyful, and Marianne, too, was
unusually cheerful. But she would not drink a drop of the wine, for she
had declared that no wine should moisten her lips until she drank it at
her John's wedding. When Amrei told with glee how she had got a place at
young Farmer Rodel's, and was going there tomorrow, Black Marianne
started up in furious anger; picking up a stone and pressing it to her
bosom, she said:
"It would be better a thousand times that I had this in me, a stone like
this, than a living heart! Why cannot I be alone? Why did I ever allow
myself to like anybody again? But now it's all over forever! You false,
faithless child! Hardly are you able to raise your wings, than off you
fly! But it is well. I am alone, and my John shall be alone, too, when
he comes--and what I have wished would come to pass, shall never be!"
With that she ran off toward the village.
"She's a witch, after all," said Damie when she had disappeared. "I
won't drink the wine--who knows if she has not bewitched it?"
"You can drink it--she's only a strict Eigenbroetlerin and she has a
heavy cross to bear. I know how to win her back again," said Amrei,
consolingly.
CHAPTER VII
THE SISTER OF MERCY
During the next year there was plenty of life in Farmer Rodel's house.
"Barefoot," for so Amrei was now called, was handy in every way, and
knew how to make herself liked by everybody; she could tell the young
farmer's wife, who had come to the place as a stranger, what the customs
of the village were; she studied the habits and characters of those
around her and learned to adapt herself to them.
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