"My poor dear father," she answered, "used often to compose and write down things too at home, himself, with his own hand, and then fair-copy them beautifully afterwards." But he enjoyed these crooked answers which she used to make. And though, from sheer veneration of him, she never understood a single one of the jokes which he was always making about himself (for she gainsaid him when he satirically depreciated himself, and agreed with him completely if he ironically lauded himself), yet these mental provincialisms of hers pleased him not a little. She would use such words as "fleuch" for "fliehe," "reuch" and "kreuch" for "riehe" and "kriehe;" religious antiquities out of Luther's Bible, which were valuable and enjoyable contributions to her stock of idiosyncracies, and to the happiness of his honeymoon. One day when he took a particularly pretty cap which she had tried on with much satisfaction to each of her three cap-blocks, one after another (she would often gently kiss these cap-blocks), and putting it on her own little head before the looking-glass, said, "See how it looks on your _own_ head; perhaps that's as good a block as the others," she laughed with immense delight, and said, "Now, you are always flattering one!" Believe me, this naive failure of hers to see his joke so touched him that he made a secret vow never to make another of the kind, except in private to himself. But there was a greater honeymoon pleasure still. This was that, when there came a fast day, Lenette would on no account allow him to kiss her, when she came into the room (ready for church), her white and red bloom of youth shining out with threefold beauty from under her black lace head-dress, and the dark leafage of her dress. "Worldly thoughts of that kind," she said, "weren't at all proper before service, when people had on their fast-day things; people must wait!" "By heaven!" said Siebenkæs to himself, "may I stick a soup spoon five inches long and three broad through my lower lip, like a North American squaw, and go about with it there, if ever I begin spooning and kissing the pious soul again, when she has a black dress on, and the bells are ringing." And though he wasn't much of a churchgoer himself, he kept his word. See how we men behave in matrimonial life, young ladies!