and early one morning, when I was still sound asleep, the Secretary from the castle waked me in a great hurry and bade me come immediately to the Bailiff.  I dressed myself as quickly as I could and followed the brisk Secretary, who, as we went, plucked a flower here and there and stuck it into his button-hole, made scientific lunges in the air with his cane, and talked steadily to me all the while, although my eyes and ears were so filled with sleep that I could not understand anything he said.  When we reached the office, where as yet it was hardly light, the Bailiff, behind a huge inkstand and piles of books and papers, looked at me from out of his huge wig like an owl from out its nest, and began:  “What’s your name?  Where do you come from?  Can you read, write, and cipher?” And when I assented, he went on, “Well, her Grace, in consideration of your good manners and extraordinary merit, appoints you to the vacant post of Receiver of Toll.”  I hurriedly passed in mental review the conduct and manners that had hitherto distinguished me, and was forced to admit that the Bailiff was right.  And so, before I knew it, I was Receiver of Toll.  I took possession of my dwelling, and was soon comfortably established there.  The deceased toll-gate keeper had left behind him for his successor various articles, which I appropriated, among others a magnificent scarlet dressing-gown dotted with yellow, a pair of green slippers, a tasseled nightcap, and several long-stemmed pipes.  I had often wished for these things at home, where I used to see our village pastor thus comfortably provided.  All day long, therefore—­I had nothing else to do—­I sat on the bench before my house in dressing-gown and nightcap, smoking the longest pipe from the late toll-gate keeper’s collection, and looking at the people walking, driving, and riding on the high-road.  I only wished that some of the folks from our village, who had always said that I never would be worth anything, might happen to pass by and see me thus.  The dressing-gown became my complexion, and suited me extremely well.  So I sat there and pondered many things—­the difficulty of all beginnings, the great advantages of an easier mode of existence, for example—­and privately resolved to give up travel for the future, save money like other people, and in time do something really great in the world.  Meanwhile, with all my resolves, anxieties, and occupations, I in no wise forgot the Lady fair.

I dug up and threw out of my little garden all the potatoes and other vegetables that I found there, and planted it instead with the choicest flowers, which proceeding caused the Porter from the castle with the big Roman nose—­who since I had been made Receiver often came to see me, and had become my intimate friend—­to eye me askance as a person crazed by sudden good fortune.  But that did not deter me.  For from my little garden I could often hear feminine voices not far off in the castle garden, and among them I thought I could distinguish the voice of my Lady fair, although, because of the thick shrubbery, I could see nobody.  And so every day I plucked a nosegay of my finest flowers, and when it was dark in the evening, I climbed over the wall and laid it upon a marble table in an arbor near by, and every time that I brought a fresh nosegay the old one was gone from the table.