Bräsig stood beside him and every now and then whispered a few words to him which he did not hear, and which, if he had heard, he would have thought great nonsense. Perhaps he might even have been angry if he had listened to what was said to him, and yet the old bailiff only spoke as he felt, for he had lost the rose coloured spectacles of youth, and saw everything through a greyer medium. Bräsig underwent a frightful martyrdom while the examination was going on; he was so terrified lest his god-daughter Mina should break down, and every time she answered a question rightly he gave vent to such a tempestuous sigh, that if Mr. Behrens had been a clergyman of the new school, he would have imagined that he had brought some miserable sinner to repent in dust and ashes.--"God be praised and thanked!" murmured the sinner, "Mina knows her catechism." Then going up to Frank: "It's coming now, only listen." And getting round to the other side of Hawermann: "Do listen, Charles. Mina will have it. Mina will have to answer the great water question. I knew it quite well, but Christian Guhl couldn't answer it, so I was made to say it instead. I've forgotten all but the beginning now: 'For water truly accomplishes nothing, but only the spirit of God.'"--While Mina gave the answer without hesitation the old man repeated it after her word for word. The churchwarden now came up with the collecting-bag, and Bräsig dropped half-a-crown into it with a bang, as though he expected his donation to buy him freedom from the weight of his anxiety. He then turned round, and seizing Mrs. Nüssler by the hand, exclaimed almost aloud: "_Did_ you hear our little roundheads?" after which he blew his nose so loudly that Mrs. Nüssler had to remonstrate with him for disturbing the congregation. If anyone had examined the tie that bound Bräsig to little Mina, a tie which was founded on the memory of his old affection for her mother, it would have been found to be quite as strong, although much calmer than that by which Frank wished to bind Louisa to himself.--Love is manifold, and reveals itself in the most unexpected forms. It flies up to heaven on rosy pinions, and walks the earth clumsily in wooden shoes; it speaks with "tongues" as the apostles did on that first Whitsunday-morning, and again it sits by our side like an innocent child; it gives the loved one diamonds and coronets, or acts like old bailiff Schecker, who paid his court to my aunt Schäning by presenting her with a fat capon.