gossamer, decolletée, and with elbow sleeves; and you wonder as you stare at it what a sane portly German housewife makes of such a garment. In this, as in other things, instead of abiding by his own sensible fashions, the German is imitating the French and the Americans; for it is the French and the Americans who have taught the women of other nations to buy clothes so fragile and so costly that they are only fit for the purse of a Chicago packer. When the outfit is ready and the wedding day near, the bride returns all the entertainments given in her honour by inviting her girl friends to a Bride-chocolate or a Bean-coffee. This festivity is like a _Kaffee-Klatsch_, or what we should call an afternoon tea. In Germany, until quite lately, chocolate and coffee were preferred to tea, and the guests sat round a dining-table well spread with cakes. At a Bean-coffee the cake of honour had a bean in it, and the girl who got the bean in her slice would be _Braut_ before the year was out. Another entertainment that takes place immediately before the marriage is given by the bride's best friend, who invites several other girls to help her weave the bridal wreath of myrtle. The bride does not help with it. She appears with the bridegroom later in the afternoon when the wreath is ready. It is presented to her with great ceremony on a cushion, and as they bring it the girls sing the well-known song from the _Freischütz_-- "Wir winden dir den Jungfernkranz Mit veilchenblauer Seide; Wir führen dich zu Spiel und Tanz Zu Glück und Liebesfreude! Lavendel, Myrt' und Thymian Das wächst in meinen Garten; Wie lang bleibt doch der Freiersmann? Ich kann es kaum erwarten. Sie hat gesponnen sieben Jahr Den goldnen Flachs am Rocken; Die Schleier sind wie Spinnweb klar, Und grün der Kranz der Locken. Und als der schmucke Freier kam, War'n sieben Jahr verronnen: Und weil sie der Herzliebste nahm Hat sie den Kranz gewonnen." The bridegroom receives a buttonhole, but no one sings him a song. In the opera he is not on the stage during the bridesmaids' chorus. I have not been able to find out whether the quaint pretty verses are by Friedrich Kind, who founded the libretto of the opera on a story by August Apel, or whether he borrowed them from an older source. German brides wore myrtle and their friends wove a wedding wreath for them long before 1820, when _Der Freischütz_ appeared. CHAPTER X MARRIAGES