Note 9 — LETTER XXXIX.

And now for some time Hansli’s mother had been quite enchanted with her son. It seemed to her he was more gay, she said. He whistled and sang, now, all the blessed day; and tricked himself up, so that he could never have done.9 Only just the other day he had bought a great-coat of drugget, in which he had nearly the air of a real counsellor. But she could not find any fault with him for all that; he was so good to her that certainly the good God must reward him;—as for herself, she was in no way of doing it, but could do nothing but pray for him. Not that you are to think, said she, that he puts everything into his clothes; he has some money too. If God spares his life, I’ll wager that one day he’ll come to have a cow:—he has been talking of a goat ever so long; but it’s not likely I shall be spared to see it. And, after all, I don’t pretend to be sure it will ever be.