"Yes, Miller, I am going to marry Bailiff Besserdich's Hanchen, who is now in service at the Schloss; and I thought if Heinrich Voss marries our Fieka, and our fathers-in-law have nothing against it, we could be married on the same day." This was too much for the Miller: "You rascal...!" He jumped up and seized one of his boots. "Stay, Miller;" said Friedrich, drawing himself up, "that word's neither fit for you nor fit for me. How things stand with me, I have known for three days, and how they stand with Heinrich and our Fieka I came to know yesterday afternoon; I was lying behind them in the waggon and heard everything they said." "It would be a good thing, father," said the Miller's wife. "You don't understand anything about it," cried the Miller, and strode about the room savagely. "Well, Miller," said Friedrich, and he went to the door, "think the matter over; _my_ father-in-law has been going about thinking of it ever since the day before yesterday." "I will give you your character at once," cried the Miller after him, "but you are not to leave before midsummer." Why was the old Miller so angry? He liked Heinrich very well; he had himself often thought during the last few days, that Heinrich and Fieka might do for one another; and he had called him his "dear son" only last night. But that was just it. Last night the punch had made him a rich man, and this morning he was looking into the tops of his boots--a beggar; even if Itzig would be put off till Easter, it would be but a short reprieve. "Father," said his wife, "this is the best thing that could happen to us and to our Fieka." "I tell you, mother," cried the Miller, and it was fortunate he had not got his boot on or he would have stamped on the floor with rage, "I tell you, you don't understand anything about it. What? I am to give my child to Joe Voss's son, who is at law with me, and who travels about the country with a great bag of money,--my best, my dearest child--and I am to say to him: 'there she is, but I can give you nothing with her for I am a beggar?' No, wife, no! Why, I should have to borrow the very clothes in which my only child,--my little Fieka,--was married.--No, no! I must get right again first."