Page:Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845).djvu/166

heavily on her mind. Her rich relations, then, would notice her, and give her a helping hand, The thought quite elevated her: “Ah!” said she, with an air, “had we in the first instance knocked at the right door, had you thought proper to apply earlier to my relations, we should have been spared much misery.” And so she went on to laud and glorify her rich kindred, though up to that moment she had always discouraged any recourse to them as utterly hopeless on account of their pride and meanness. For some time Veit, in consideration of the many troubles she had gone through, allowed her to indulge in the pleasure she took in setting forth the importance, the inestimable value, of her rich relations; it tickled her vanity, and though he was annoyed, yet for awhile he put up with it; but when he found that the theme seemed exhaustless, that week after week the praises of those opulent niggards was well nigh her only topic, he lost all patience, and one day said to her: “Dost thou know what the master of the house gave me when I went, as thou boastest, to knock at the right door?”—“No, tell me.”—“Well, he gave me a proverb: ‘Every one forges his own fortune;’ that was what he gave me. Another of thy rich relations gave me—what dost think? another proverb: ‘Strike while the iron is hot,’ said he. And a third gave me a third