It is ever thus in the world; what brings joy to one, brings sorrow to another, and marriage and death go side by side, although the difference between them is greater than between summer and winter. There are some people to be found with such beautiful dispositions, that in spite of their loss being the other's gain, or of their having gained by the other's loss, their love to each other forms a bridge over the abyss which might have separated them, but which their generous love has changed into a firm bond of union. And of this Mrs. Behrens and Lina were a bright example. Each clung to the other with a comprehending love and sympathy that never failed as long as they lived.
And our old friend Godfrey did his part to strengthen the ties binding Mrs. Behrens to her old home. In his first sermon also it must be confessed that he thought less of himself than of the example his predecessor had always showed, so that when Bräsig came out of church he stroked Lina's cheek and kissed Mina, saying: "He is growing much more sensible. Methodists are often quite reasonable mortals; but they're the devil's own. I once knew a Methodist, I mean parson Mehlsack, who was really a good sort of man, but he had given himself so completely to the devil that he no longer preached about God; and as for the parson over in the beautiful Cracow districts, he proved padagraphically that there are _three hundred and thirty three_ separate devils rushing about the world, without counting the regular devil and his grandmother. Now look here, Lina, this is the chief discomfort for the like of us in such matters. Suppose that you, and some of your friends seat yourselves round a bowl of punch in Rahnstädt, and you finish that bowl, and then another, and another, and a gentleman in a brown surtout seats himself beside you--the devil always wears a brown surtout, it's part of the contract that he should do so--and talks to you pleasantly the whole evening, and when you wake next morning, you see the same gentleman standing before you, and he says to you, says he: 'Good morning, my friend, you signed a paper for me last night,' he then shows you his cloven foot, and if he's in a good humour, he lets you have a sight of his tail, and flips you playfully over the ears with it, and so you become his heritable property. That's the way with _honest_ Methodists, and with the other's it's even worse I can tell you."