A few days later Hermine came to visit Mrs. Hediger, bringing her knitting with her, and there was so much cordiality, talking, and laughing that Hediger, cutting out a frock coat in his workshop, was almost disturbed and wondered what old gossip could be there. Still, he did not pay much attention to it till finally he heard his wife go to a cupboard and begin to rattle the blue coffee set. For the "Gunsmithy" was making as good a pot of coffee as she had ever brewed; she also took a good handful of sage leaves, dipped them in an egg-batter and fried them in butter, thus making so-called little mice, since the stems of the leaves looked like mouse-tails. They rose beautifully and made a heaping dish full, the fragrance of which, together with that of the fresh coffee ascended to Master Hediger above. When, finally, he heard her pounding sugar he became highly impatient to be called to the table; but he would not have gone one moment earlier, for he belonged to the Staunch and Upright. As he now entered the room he saw his wife and the graceful "forbidden person" sitting in close friendship behind the coffee-pot and, moreover, it was the blue-flowered coffee-pot; and besides the little mice there was butter on the table and the blue-flowered pot full of honey; it was not real honey, to be sure, but only cherry-jam, about the color of Herrnine's eyes; and it was Saturday too, a day on which all respectable middle-class women scrub and scour, clean and polish, and never cook a bite that's fit to eat. Hediger looked very critically at the whole scene and his greeting was rather stern; but Hermine was so charming and at the same time so resolute that he sat there as if muzzled and ended by going himself to get a "glass of wine" out of the cellar and even drawing it from the small keg. Hermine responded to this mark of favor by declaring that she must have a plate of mice kept for Karl, as he probably didn't get very good things to eat in the barracks. She took her plate and pulled out the finest mice by their tails with her own dainty fingers and kept on piling them up till at last Karl's mother herself cried that it was enough. Hermine then put the plate beside her, looked at it with satisfaction from time to time, and occasionally picked out a piece and ate it, saying that she was Karl's guest now; after which she would conscientiously replace the plunder from the dish. Finally it got to be too much for the worthy Hediger; he scratched his head and, urgent though his work was, hastily put on his coat and hurried forth to seek the father of the little sinner. "We must look out," he said to him; "your daughter and my old woman are sitting at home in all their glory, hand in glove, and it all looks mighty suspicious to me; you know women are the very devil." "Why don't you chase the young scallywag off?" said Frymann, annoyed. "I chase her off? Not I; she's a regular witch! Just come along yourself and attend to her."