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Somewhat to his surprise, one night, as he sat beside the oven smoking his second pipe, he found himself thinking once more about his project for making such lebkuchen as never yet had been known outside of Nuernberg–lebkuchen that would make him at once the admiration and the despair of every German baker in New York. Nor was there, as he perceived as he turned the matter over in his mind, any reason now why he should not set about making this project a reality; for he had money enough, and more than enough, in store to buy the honey that he had so long desired. His eyes sparkled; he forgot to smoke; and when he turned again, half unconsciously, to his pipe, it had gone out. This roused him. The brightness faded from his eyes; he drew a long sigh. Then he lighted his pipe again, and until the baking was ended his thoughts no longer were busied with ambitious schemes for the making of lebkuchen, but went back with a sad tenderness to the happy time that had come so quickly to so cruel an end.

But the spark was kindled, and presently the fire burned. When he told the good Hedwig that he had bought the honey at last, that excellent woman–albeit not much given to display of the tender emotions–shed tears of joy. She was a sturdy, thick-waisted, stout-ankled person, this Aunt Hedwig, with a cheery red face, and prodigiously fine white teeth, and very bright black eyes; and her taste in dress was such that when of a Sunday she went to the Church of the Redemptorist Fathers, in Third Street, she was more brilliant than ever King Solomon was in all his glory, in her startling array of vivid reds and greens and blues. But beneath her violent exterior of energetic color she had a warm and faithful heart, as little Minna knew already, and as her brother Gottlieb had known for many a long good year. Therefore was Gottlieb now gladdened by her hearty show of sympathy; and he returned with a good will the sounding smack that she gave him with her red lips, and the strong hug that she gave him with her stout arms.

It was at sight of this pleasing manifestation of affection that Herr Sohnstein, the notary–who was present in the little room back of the shop where it occurred–at once declared that he meant to buy some honey too. And Aunt Hedwig, smiling so generously as to show every one of her fine white teeth, promptly told him that he had better be off and buy it, because perhaps he could buy at the same place some hugs and kisses too: at which sally and quick repartee they all laughed. Herr Sohnstein long had been the declared lover of Aunt Hedwig’s, and long had been held at arm’s-length (quite literally occasionally) by that vigorous person; who believed, because of her good heart, that her present duty was not to consult her own happiness by becoming Frau Sohnstein, but to remain the Fraeulein Brekel, and care for her lonely brother and her brother’s child.

Being thus encouraged, Gottlieb bought the honey forthwith; and with Aunt Hedwig’s zealous assistance set about boiling it and straining it and kneading it into a sticky dough, all in accordance with the wise old baker’s directions which he so long had treasured in his mind. And when the dough was packed in earthen pots, over which bladders were tied, all the pots were set away in the coolest part of the cellar, as far from the great oven as possible, that the precious honey-cake might undergo that subtle change which only comes with time.

For at least a year must pass before the honey-cake really can be said to be good at all; and the longer that it remains in the pots, even until five-and-twenty years, the better does it become. Therefore it is that all makers of lebkuchen who aspire to become famous professors of the craft add each year to their stock of honey-cake, yet draw always from the oldest pots a time-soaked dough that ever grows more precious in its sweet excellence of age. Thus large sums–more hundreds of dollars than a young baker, just starting upon his farinaceous career, would dare to dream of–may be invested; and the old rich bakers who can dower their daughters with many honey-pots know that in the matter of sons-in-law they have but to pick and choose.