Vreni bent her pretty head down on her flower-bedecked bosom, deep in thought, and went along the smooth, damp woodpath with hands carefully held along her sides, while Sali stepped along elastic and upright, quick and thoughtful, his eyes fastened to the oak trunks ahead of him, like a well-to-do peasant reflecting on the problem which of these trees it would best pay to cut down and which to leave. But at last they awoke from these vain dreams, glanced at each other and discovered that they were still maintaining the attitude with which they had left the inn. Then they both blushed and their heads drooped in melancholy fashion. Youth, however, soon reasserted itself. The woods were green, the sky overhead faultlessly blue, and they were alone by themselves in the world, and thus they soon drifted back into that train of thought. But they did not long remain by themselves, since this attractive forest road began to be alive with groups and couples out for a bracing walk in the cool shade, most of them returning from service in church, and nearly all of these were singing gay worldly tunes, trifling and joking with each other. For in these parts it so happens that the rustics have their customary walks and promenades as well as the city dwellers, to which they resort at leisure, only with this great difference that their pleasure grounds cost nothing to maintain and that these are finer in every way, since Nature alone has made them. Not alone do they stroll about on Sundays through fields and meadows and woods with a peculiar sense of freedom and recreation, taking stock of their ripening crops and the prospects of the harvest to come, but they also choose with unerring taste excursions along the edge of forest or meadow, hill or dale, sit down for a brief rest on the summit of a height, whence they enjoy a fine view, or sing in chorus at another suitable spot, and certainly obtain fully as much, if not more, pleasure out of all this as town folk do. And since they do all this, not as labor but diversion, one must conclude that these rustics, despite of what has often been claimed to the contrary, are lovers of nature, aside from the strictly utilitarian view of it. And always they break off something green and living, young and old, even weak and decrepit women, when they revisit the scenes of long ago, and the same spirit is seen in the habit that these country people have, including sedate men of business, of cutting for themselves a slender rod of hazel, or a snappy cane, whenever they walk through woods or forest, and these they will peel all but a small bunch of green leaves at the point. Such rods or twigs they will bear as though it were a sceptre, and when they enter an office or public place they will put them in a corner of the room, and never forget to get them again, even after the most serious and important matters have been discussed, and to take them along with them home. And it is then only the privilege of the