Franz Mass, who had set up the autumn before as a worthy baker, was standing, with his legs apart, in front of his shop, looking up contentedly at the tin "Bretzel" swinging over his door in the gentle noon-day breeze, when he saw an Uhlan come swaggering down the village street with his cap cocked to one side and clinking his spurs. His brave ex-soldier's heart beat quicker under his white baker's apron as he took his pipe out of his mouth and shaded his eyes with his hand. "Well, I declare, it's Johannes!" "Hallo, old fellow!" And they were greeting each other with effusion. "Where do you hail from so late in the season? Have you had to do extra service?" "For shame!" Then they start questions and confessions. About the captain and the sergeant and old Knapphaus and the fair baker's daughter whom they used to call "Crumpet Mary," and who lived in the baker's shop close to the barracks--they all have their turn and not one is forgotten. "And what about yourself? Did they recognize you in the village?" asks Franz, transferring his insatiable thirst for knowledge to more homely ground. "Not a soul," laughs Johannes, complacently twirling his budding cavalry moustache which points heavenwards in two smart ends. "And at home?" Johannes makes a serious face and says he must go. "Oh, you're only on the way there now? Then I suppose it's bobbing about in there?" And he gives him a searching thump on his chest. Johannes laughs curtly and then suppresses a sigh as if to master his excitement. Franz lays his hand on his shoulder and says: "Well, you will find a sister-in-law--upon my word, she's a sister-in-law worth having!" He smacks his lips and winks his eye. It fills Johannes again with his former defiance and rage. He shrugs his shoulders contemptuously, shakes hands with his friend and goes off clinking his spurs. Three more minutes' walk; then he is through the village. There is the church! Poor old thing--it has got even a bit more tumble-down! But the black larches still rustle as of old, and theirs is the same sweet song of happy promise which they sang to him on the day of his confirmation. There on the left is the inn--by Jove, they have put up a massive new doorway, and at the window there stand immense liquor-flasks, filled with flaming red and viciously green fluids. Mine host of the "Crown" has been looking up! That side-path leads down to the river. And there is the mill, the goal of his dreams! How comfortable the old thatched roof looks across the alder bushes, how snowy white are the cherry blossoms in the garden, how cheerily the mill-wheels clatter: "Welcome, welcome!" How the dear old moss-grown weir seems to chant a blessing from afar! He pushes his cap a degree further back and pulls himself together resolutely, for he is determined to master his emotion.