Only my wife thought that we ought to consult Cousin George and Marie Anne. Gredel was just there when I went in with Catherine; but behold! on the first mention of the thing she began to melt into tears, and to say she would rather die than marry Mathias Heitz. You may imagine how angry we were. My wife was going to slap her face or box her ears; but my cousin became angry now, and told us that we ought never to oblige a girl to marry against her will, because this was the way to make miserable households. Then he led us out into the passage, telling us that he took the responsibility of this affair: that he wished to obtain information, and that we were to tell the young man that we required a month for reflection. We could not refuse him that. Gredel would no longer come home; my cousin's wife begged us not to plague her, and we had to give way to them; but it was one of the greatest troubles of my life. And I thought: "Now you cannot give your daughter to whoever you like; is not this really abominable?" I felt angry with myself for having listened to my cousin: but, nevertheless, Gredel stayed with them a whole week, in consequence of which we were obliged to hire a charwoman; and Jacob exclaimed that Gredel could not have offered him a worse insult than to refuse his best comrade, a rich fellow, who boldly paid down his money for ten, fifteen, and twenty bottles at the club without winking. However, he never mentioned it to Cousin George, for whom he felt the greatest respect on account of his expectations from him, and whose strong language dismayed him. At last my wife found that Gredel was staying too long away from home; the people of the village would talk about it; so one evening I went to see George, to ask him what he had learned about Heitz's son. It was after supper. Gredel, seeing me come in, slipped out into the kitchen, and my cousin said to me frankly: "Listen, Christian: here is the matter in two words--Gredel loves another." "Whom?" "Jean Baptiste Werner." "Father Heitz's clerk? the son of the woodward Werner, who has never had anything but potatoes to eat? Is she in love with him? Let the wretch come--let him come and ask her! I'll kick him down the stairs! And Gredel to grieve me so? Oh! I should never have believed it of her!" I could have cried. "Come, Christian," said my cousin, "you must be reasonable." "Reasonable! she deserves to have her neck wrung!"