"How do you mean ours? Has my father made it over to you?"
"No, it still belongs to your father--that is--on certain conditions. He never had the power entirely to cut down the wood, because it is our protection against the weather, a safeguard against the snow, or a landslip of the hill itself, falling on our house and burying it."
"Why do you talk to me about such things? What are they to me?"
"Nor I you. In my situation you should not imagine such dreadful possibilities."
"Very well, then I will sing you something, and if anyone hears us, so much the better."
Lenz and Annele went homewards, singing, and soon a visitor arrived: it was the Landlord himself. He took his son-in-law aside into another room, and said:--
"I am glad to hear it. I shall be glad to learn what it is."
"He paid me four hundred gulden, but I spent part of it in furnishing."
"Hard cash is now the thing; you can make a good profit by it."
"That would take too long. Give me a bill for the sum, I will invest it for you and you will gain five-and-twenty per cent."
"I wish you had not said that. I intended that you should have had all the gain yourself, but I must say you are an honest man."
"Thank you, father-in-law, I do my best. I don't like to accept presents."
"Perhaps it would be better still if you left the money in my business, and whatever I make by it shall be yours."
"I don't understand your business; I prefer taking my steady percentage."
When her father returned into the sitting-room, Annele brought in refreshments, but the Landlord wished to decline them and to go away immediately. Annele however pressed him to remain, saying:--
"It is your own wine, father. Do sit down for a little; we see you so seldom now."
No chair in the Morgenhalde seemed substantial enough to bear the weight of the Landlord's dignity, so he drank a glass of wine standing, and then went down the hill, holding his hand on the breast pocket of his coat.
"How strange my father is today," said Annele.
"He has important business on hand,--I have just given him my two thousand six hundred gulden that I had placed with the bailiff."
"I don't know what you mean--nothing; I will ask him for a receipt some day, when I have an opportunity, because this is customary."