- The Soldier With His Sweetheart, The Students
In Twos And Threes, The Little Grisette With Her Cousin, The Shop-
Boy And The Workman.
Here come grey-haired Darby and Joan, and, over the mug of beer they
share between them, they sit
Thinking of the children - of little
Lisa, married to clever Karl, who is pushing his way in the far-off
land that lies across the great sea; of laughing Elsie, settled in
Hamburg, who has grandchildren of her own now; of fair-haired Franz,
his mother's pet, who fell in sunny France, fighting for the
fatherland. At the next table sits a blushing, happy little maid,
full of haughty airs and graces, such as may be excused to a little
maid who has just saved a no doubt promising, but at present
somewhat awkward-looking, youth from lifelong misery, if not madness
and suicide (depend upon it, that is the alternative he put before
her), by at last condescending to give him the plump little hand,
that he, thinking nobody sees him, holds so tightly beneath the
table-cloth. Opposite, a family group sit discussing omelettes and
a bottle of white wine. The father contented, good-humoured, and
laughing; the small child grave and solemn, eating and drinking in
business-like fashion; the mother smiling at both, yet not
forgetting to eat.
I think one would learn to love these German women if one lived
among them for long. There is something so sweet, so womanly, so
genuine about them.
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