The children walked on, and when they had got near enough for the
farm-bailiff--for such was the calling of the little man--to see what
they were wearing, he stood still, and raised his bushy yellow eye-brows
till they were quite hidden under his pointed cap, treating them as if
they were the most beautiful part of his face, and must therefore be put
away in a safe place out of all danger: "Bless me!" cried he. "What's
the matter? What on earth have you been about? Why you've got the whole
of your old grandparent's Sunday-finery on your heads!" The two little
girls allowed themselves to be deprived of their borrowed plumes without
remonstrance, and showing the broken jar, said that the wheel-wright was
to mend it. "What!" exclaimed Mr. farm-bailiff Braesig--that was the way
he liked to be addressed--"is it possible that there is such insummate
folly in the world? Lina, you are the eldest and ought to have been
wiser; and, Mina, don't cry any more, you are my little god-child, and
so I'll give you a new jar at the summer-fair. And now get away with you
into the house." He drove the little girls before him, and followed
carrying the peruke in one hand and the cap in the other.
When he found the sitting-room empty, he said to himself: "Of course,
every one's out at the hay. Well, I ought to be looking after my hay
too, but the little round-heads have made such a mess of these two bits
of grandeur, that they'd be sure to get into a scrape if the old people
were to see what they've been after; I must stay and repair the mischief
that has been done.
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