But this time he came differently. He came, as he has often come to my door, with ringing bells, and a snapping whip, and two gray horses before the sleigh, stamping their feet, and he sprang from the sleigh exactly like Wilhelm of Siden Vollentin, and rubbed his blue, frosty cheeks, and thrashed his arms about his body, once--twice--thrice. "Good morning, Herr Reuter, I have come for you. Compliments of the Herr and of the Frau, and you need only step into the sleigh, for there are heaps of foot-sacks and wraps there, and to-morrow is Christmas eve, and little Hans charged me to drive fast." Yes, when he comes like that, we both sing, my wife and I, "Come in, come in, thou welcome guest!" and we treat the old fellow to a glass of wine, and then get into the sleigh, and off we go,--ten miles an hour,--and when old Winter sets us down at the door of Vollentin, Fritz Peiters says, "Why the devil have you been so long on the road?" and the Frau kisses my wife, and takes off her wrappings, and says to me, "Uncle Reuter, I have got you short kale and long sausage," and the two girls, Lising and Anning, whom I have so often carried in my arms when they were tiny little things, come and give their old uncle a kiss, and then hang about my dear wife, and Fritz and Max come, who are now at the great Anclam gymnasium and greet us with a hearty shake of the hand, and little Hans, who has been waiting his turn, comes, and jumps and frolics around me, and climbs on my left knee, and there I must hold him, the whole evening. And then little Ernest, the nestling, is presented, and we stand about this little wonder of the world, and clap our hands at his wisdom and understanding, and then comes _grandmother_. And then begin the winter and Christmas pleasures, the tree blazes, and the yule raps are rapped, and then comes a yule rap from my dear wife, with a poem, the only one she ever wrote in her life: "Here! sit, and here I sing, and ask for nothing more"--and the melody goes no further, but it is enough of the kind.