Dolly made the stranger one of them at once by talking bad German,
as an offset to his bad English, called him Professor in spite of
all denials, and unconsciously symbolized his future bondage by
giving him a tangled skein to hold for the furtherance of her
mother's somewhat lengthened job.

The Cupid of the present day was undoubtedly "raised" in
Connecticut; for the ingenuity and shrewdness of that small
personage could have sprung from no other soil. In former times his
stratagems were of the romantic order. Colin bleated forth his
passion in rhyme, and cast sheep's eyes from among his flock, while
Phyllis coquetted with her crook and stuck posies in his hat; royal
Ferdinand and Miranda played at chess; Ivanhoe upset his fellow-men
like ninepins for love of lackadaisical Rowena; and "sweet Moll"
turned the pages while her lover, Milton, sang. But in our day the
jolly little god, though still a heathen in the severe simplicity of
his attire, has become modernized in his arts, and invented
huskings, apple-bees, sleigh-rides, "drop-ins," gymnastics, and,
among his finer snares, the putting on of skates, drawing of
patterns, and holding skeins,--the last-named having superior
advantages over the others, as all will testify who have enjoyed one
of those hand-to-hand skirmishes.

August Bopp was three and twenty, imaginative, grateful, and
heart-whole; therefore, when he found himself sitting opposite a
blooming little damsel, with a head, bound by a pretty red snood,
bent down before him, and very close to his own a pair of
distracting hands, every finger of which had a hit to make, and made
it, it is not to be denied that he felt himself entering upon a new
and very agreeable experience. Where could he look but in the face