And I used ever to say: "Helene, when I am truly in love I will e'en
bring her here to you, and, by my faith, if you approve not--why, there
is an end of the matter. Back she goes to her mother like a parcel of
returned goods--aye, if she were the Kaiser's daughter herself!"

Whereat she pouted and was not ill-pleased.

"Ah, my man," she would reply, "after a girl hath said you nay a time or
two, it will bring you down from these high notions, and be much for your
soul's final good!"

But yet, when I could keep her in good-humor, it was exceedingly sweet to
bide quietly in the house with the Little Playmate--far better than to
gad about with Texels and meandering fools, which indeed I did
oftentimes just because it made my little lass so full of moods and
tenses--like one of Friar Laurence's irregular verbs in his cursed
Humanities. For there is nothing so variously delightful as a woman when
she is half in love and half out of it--more interesting (say some)
though less delightful than when she is all and whole in love.
Nevertheless, there are exceptions, and one woman at least I know more
various, and more delicious also, since love's ocean hath gone over her
head, than ever she was when, like a timid bather, she shivered on the
brink or made little fearful plunges, as it were knee-deep, and so ran
out again.

But I am not come to that in the story yet.

Well, on the afternoon of the next day, who should come to the house in
the Red Tower but our Helene's gossip, for this week at least her bosom
friend, Katrin Texel. She was even more impressive in manner than ever,