The answer was not calculated to please me: "She is young and attractive: Fortnoye advanced the funds to set her up in the house." But my morose thoughts were distracted by the scene around us. The moon burst up above the trees of the Oak Wood--a fine ample German moon, like a Diana of Rubens. Close to our sides passed numerous young couples, holding hands, clasping waists, chattering gayly, or walking in silence with a blonde head laid on a burly shoulder. One of my companions pointed out a specially stalwart and graceful young apprentice, whose elbow, supported on a rustic bench, was bent around a mass of beautiful golden hair. "An eligible _verlobter_," said he. I thought of Perrette and the tall young man who had helped pull her milk-cart. My friend continued: "Betrothal hereabouts is a serious institution. The girl who loses her _verlobter_ becomes a widow. Woe betide her if she dreams of replacing him too early! She will find herself followed by ill looks and contemptuous tongues: she even runs the risk of having nobody to marry better than a dead man, if we may believe the history of Bettina of Ettlingen." "The history of Bettina of Ettlingen? That sounds like the title to a ballad." "It is a recent history, which you would take for a legend of the twelfth century." [Illustration: ON THE FIRST STEP.] I cannot help it. In face of that word _legend_ my mind stops and stares rigidly like a pointer dog. The moment was favorable for a good story: the sky was covered with flocked clouds, behind which the ample German moon, shorn of half its brightness, took suddenly the pale gilded tint of sauerkraut. The wandering lovers, half effaced in the gloom, looked like straying shades in an Elysium.