and importunities of her cousins.  The good Pylades, who might have arranged the affair, I could not contrive to meet.  The next Sunday, therefore, I set out for Niederrad, where these associates generally used to go, and actually found them there.  I was, however, greatly surprised, when, instead of behaving in a cross, distant manner, they came up to me with joyful countenances.  The youngest particularly was very kind, took me by the hand, and said, “You have lately played us a sorry trick, and we were very angry with you; but your absconding and taking away the poetical epistle has suggested a good thought to us, which otherwise might never have occurred.  By way of atonement, you may treat us to-day; and you shall learn at the same time the notion we have, which will certainly give you pleasure.”  This harangue caused me no small embarrassment, for I had about me only money enough to regale myself and a friend:  but to treat a whole company, and especially one which did not always stop at the right time, I was by no means prepared; nay, the proposal astonished me the more, as they had always insisted, in the most honorable manner, that each one should pay only his own share.  They smiled at my distress; and the youngest proceeded, “Let us first take a seat in the bower, and then you shall learn more.”  We sat down; and he said, “When you had taken the love-letter with you, we talked the whole affair over again, and came to a conclusion that we had gratuitously misused your talent to the vexation of others and our own danger, for the sake of a mere paltry love of mischief, when we could have employed it to the advantage of all of us.  See, I have here an order for a wedding-poem, as well as for a dirge.  The second must be ready immediately, the other can wait a week.  Now, if you make these, which is easy for you, you will treat us twice; and we shall long remain your debtors.”  This proposal pleased me in every respect; for I had already in my childhood looked with a certain envy on the occasional poems, [Footnote:  That is to say, a poem written for a certain occasion, as a wedding, funeral, etc.  The German word is Gelegenheitsgedicht.”—­TRANS.]—­of which then several circulated every week, and at respectable marriages especially came to light by the dozen,—­because I thought I could make such things as well, nay, better than others.  Now an opportunity was offered me to show myself, and especially to see myself in print.  I did not appear disinclined.  They acquainted me with the personal particulars and the position of the family:  I went somewhat aside, made my plan, and produced some stanzas.  However, when I returned to the company, and the wine was not spared, the poem began to halt; and I could not deliver it that evening.  “There is still time till to-morrow evening,” they said; “and we will confess to you that the fee which we receive for the dirge is enough to get us another pleasant evening to-morrow.  Come to us; for it is but fair that Gretchen, too, should sup with us, as it was she properly who gave us the notion.”  My joy was unspeakable.  On my way home I had only the remaining stanzas in my head, wrote down the whole before I went to sleep, and the next morning made a very neat, fair copy.  The day seemed infinitely long to me; and scarcely was it dusk, than I found myself again in the narrow little dwelling beside the dearest of girls.