Gold Elsie

GOLD ELSIE

FROM THE GERMAN
OF

E. MARLITT

AUTHOR OF "THE OLD MAM'SELLE'S SECRET."

BY
MRS. A. L. WISTER.

PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1868.

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

GOLD ELSIE

CHAPTER I.

It had been snowing all day long,—so steadily that the roofs and window-sills were covered deep with spotless white cushions. And now the early twilight fell, bringing with it a wild gust of wind that raged among the falling snow-flakes like some bird of prey among a flock of peaceful doves.

Although the weather was such that the comfort-loving inhabitants of any small town would hardly have sent their dogs out of doors, not to mention venturing their own worthy persons, yet there was little difference to be seen in the size of the crowd that usually frequents the streets of the large Capital, B——, between the hours of six and seven in the evening. The gas lamps were an excellent substitute for those heavenly lights which would not make their appearance. Carriages were whirling around corners in such tempestuous haste that many a pedestrian rescued life and limb only by a sudden leap aside, while curses both loud and deep were hurled after the coachmen enveloped in their comfortable furs, and the elegant coaches which contained behind their glass doors charmingly dressed women, whose lovely flower-crowned heads, as they peeped from among masses of muslin and tulle, certainly had no suspicion of the fire and brimstone called down upon them. In the warm atmosphere, behind the huge shop windows, elaborately curled and frizzed wax heads, surrounded by blond and black scalps, stared out upon the passers-by. Smiling shopmen displayed their fascinating merchandise, and withered old flower-sellers stood among their fresh-blooming bouquets, which exhaled beauty and fragrance beneath the light of the lamps that shed a brilliant glare upon the slippery pavement and upon the flood of human life streaming by, revealing the pinched, blue features and the desperately uncomfortable movements of all, old and young.

But stay,—not of all! A female figure has just entered one of the principal streets from a narrow by-way. A small threadbare cloak closely envelopes her slender form, and a worn old muff is pressed against her breast, confining the ends of a black lace veil, behind which two girlish eyes are glowing with the sunlight of early youth. They look out joyously into the whistling snow-storm, rest lovingly upon the half-open rosebuds and dark purple violets behind the glass panes of the shop windows, and only veil their light beneath their long dark lashes when sharp hail-stones mingle with the driving snow-flakes.

Whoever has listened while childish fingers, or sometimes fingers no longer childish, confidently begin upon the piano a well-known melody, which goes bravely on for a few bars, then is arrested by a frightful discord followed by a wild grasping after every key on the instrument except the correct ones, while the patient teacher sits by, ceasing to attempt to evoke order out of chaos by the usual steady marking of the time, wearily waiting until the panting melody is seized again and carried on with lightning rapidity through several easy bars as over some level plain,—whoever has thus had his ears stretched upon the rack, can understand the delight with which this young girl, who has just given two music lessons in a large school, offers her hot cheek to the wind as to an energetic comrade, whose mighty roar can breathe wondrous melodies through the pipes of an organ or over the strings of an Æolian harp.

Thus she passes lightly and swiftly through the storm and crowd; and I do not for an instant doubt that if I should present her now upon this slippery pavement to the gentle reader as Fräulein Elizabeth Ferber, she would with a lovely smile make him as graceful a courtesy as though they both stood in a ball-room. But this introduction cannot take place,—and we really do not need it, for I forthwith intend to relate to the reader my heroine's antecedents.

Baron Wolf von Gnadewitz was the last scion of a famous house whose remote ancestry could be traced back into the dubious twilight which even preceded that golden age when the travelling merchant, journeying through some sequestered pass, was forced to surrender his costly stuffs and wares to a knightly banner and shining steel-clad troup of retainers as often as to the buff-coated highway adventurer. From those illustrious times there had been handed down, in the crest of the Gnadewitzes a wheel, upon which one of these same noble ancestors had breathed out his knightly soul in consequence of having spilt rather too much ignoble trading-blood in one of the above-mentioned assaults upon his merchant prey.

Baron von Gnadewitz, the last of his race, was chamberlain in the service of the Prince Royal of X——, and possessor of various orders and large estates, as well as of those peculiarities of character and disposition which were, in his estimation, befitting the high-born, and which he was accustomed to designate as "distinguished," because all common men, bound by work-a-day moral considerations, and compelled by the stern necessities of life, lose all taste for the inimitable grace and elegance of vice.

Baron Wolf von Gnadewitz was as fond of pomp and show as his grandfather, who had forsaken the old castle Gnadeck upon a mountain in Thuringia, the cradle of his line, and had built him in the valley below a perfect fairy palace in the Italian style. The grandson allowed the old castle to fall into decay, while he enlarged and improved the modern mansion considerably. Yes, it seemed as though he entertained not the smallest doubt but that his latest descendant would be found occupying this favourite palace at the day of judgment, for the old castle was quite dismantled in order that the vast chambers of the new abode might be thoroughly furnished. But he reckoned without his host. Wolf von Gnadewitz had a son, 'tis true,—a son who, at twenty years of age, was so complete and thorough a Gnadewitz that the illustrious image of his ancestor who had perished upon the wheel paled before him. This promising youth one day, upon the occasion of the great autumn hunt in the forest, struck one of his whippers-in a fearful blow upon the head with the loaded handle of his hunting-whip—a fearful blow, but a perfectly just punishment, as every one of the guests invited to the hunt declared, for the man had stepped upon the paw of a favourite hound so clumsily as to render the animal entirely useless for a whole day. And thus it happened that, a short time afterward, Hans von Gnadewitz was to be found not only upon the boughs of the genealogical tree in the hall of the new castle, but suspended by a rope around his neck to a bough of one of the actual trees in the forest. The beaten whipper-in expiated the deed upon the scaffold, but that could not bring the last of the Gnadewitzes to life again, for he was dead,—irrevocably dead, the physicians said; and the long tale of robber-knights, wild excesses, hunting orgies, and horse-racing came to an end.

After this terrible catastrophe, Wolf von Gnadewitz left the castle in the valley, and indeed that part of the country, and dwelt upon one of his many estates in Silesia. He took into his house to nurse him a young female relative, the last survivor of one of the collateral branches of his house. This young relative proved to be a girl of angelic beauty, at sight of whom the old baron entirely forgot the object for which he had invited her beneath his roof, and at last determined to clothe his sixty years in a wedding-garment. To his exceeding indignation, however, he now learned that there might come a time, even to a Gnadewitz, when he could no longer be regarded as a desirable parti, and he fell into a violent rage when his young relative confessed that, in utter forgetfulness of her lofty lineage, she had given her heart to a bourgeois officer, the son of one of his foresters.

The young man possessed no worldly gear, only his sword and a remarkably fine manly person; but he was rich in mind, accomplished, amiable in disposition, and of stainless character. When Wolf von Gnadewitz, in consequence of Marie's confession, turned her from his doors, young Ferber carried her home with delight as his wife, and for the first ten years of their married life would not have exchanged his lot with that of any king on earth. Still less would he have made such an exchange in the eleventh year, for that was the eventful 1848; but with it came fierce struggles for him, and an entire alteration in his circumstances. He was obliged to decide between two duties. One had been inculcated while he was in his cradle by his father, and ran thus: "Love your neighbour, and especially your German brother, as yourself;" the other, which he had in later years imposed upon himself, commanded him to draw the sword in his master's interest. In this strife the teachings of his childhood conquered entirely. Ferber refused to draw the sword upon his brethren; but his refusal cost him his commission, and with it all assured means of subsistence. He retired from the army, and soon afterward, in consequence of a severe cold, was stretched upon a sick-bed, which he left only after years of disheartening weakness. He then moved with his family to B——, where he obtained quite a lucrative situation as bookkeeper in an extensive mercantile establishment. It was high time, for his wife's small property had been lost shortly before by the failure of a bank, and the remittances of money which came to the distressed family from time to time from Ferber's elder and only brother, a forester in Thuringia, were all that kept them from extreme poverty.

Unluckily this good fortune was of short duration. Ferber's chief was a pietist of the most severe description, and spared no one in his zeal for proselytism. His efforts to convert Ferber to his own narrow dogmas were met by such quiet but decided resistance, that the pious spirit of the saintly Herr Hagen was seized with holy horror. Remorse at the thought of affording protection and subsistence to such an avowed free-thinker, gave him no peace by night or by day, until he had freed himself from such a burden of guilt, by a note of dismissal, which banished the tainted sheep from his fold.

About the same time Wolf von Gnadewitz went home to his ancestors, and as during his earthly career he had strictly conformed to the Gnadewitz custom of leaving no insult, fancied or otherwise: unavenged, no worthier conclusion to his life could be found than the will which he drew up with his own hands shortly before he descended into the narrow chamber of lead which was to contain for all futurity his noble bones.

This manly document, which constituted sole heir to his large estates a distant relative of his wife's, concluded with the following codicil:

"In consideration of the undeniable claim which she has upon my property, I bequeath to Anna Marie Ferber, born von Gnadewitz, the castle of Gnadeck in the mountains in Thuringia. Anna Marie Ferber will understand my benevolent intention in her behalf in leaving to her a mansion crowded with memories of the noble race to which she once belonged. In full remembrance and consideration of the good fortune and many blessings which have always hovered above this ancient pile, I hold it entirely superfluous to increase my legacy further. But if Anna Marie Ferber, blind to the value of my gift, should wish to sell or exchange it in any way, her right to it must be abdicated in favour of the orphan asylum of L——."

And thus, with the utterance of a biting satire, Wolf von Gnadewitz betook himself to his funeral bed of state. Ferber and his wife had indeed never seen the old castle, but it was notoriously a crumbling heap of ruins, which the hand of improvement had not touched for fifty years, and which, when the modern abode in the valley was completed, had been stripped of furniture, tapestries, and, in the case of the main building, even of the metallic roofing.

Since that time the ponderous oaken door of the principal entrance had remained closed, and the dusty, rusty bolts and bars had never once been withdrawn. The huge forest trees which were growing before it spread abroad their mighty branches, and drooped them among the thick brushwood at their feet, so that the deserted castle lay behind the green impenetrable wall like a coffined mummy.

The lucky heir, who was greatly annoyed by seeing so large a part of his woodland possessions in stranger hands, would gladly have purchased the old castle at a high price, but the cunning clause at the conclusion of the codicil forbade any such transaction.

Frau Ferber laid the copy of the will which had been sent her, and upon which there dropped from her eyes a few tears of regret, upon her husband's desk, and then took up her work,—some delicate embroidery,—with redoubled, almost feverish industry. In spite of his exertions Ferber had been unable to procure another situation, and was now doing his best to maintain his family by translating, a labour but poorly paid, and even by copying law papers, while his wife eked out their scanty means by the proceeds of her needle, which she plied night and day.

But dark as were the heavens above the struggling pair, one star rose quietly among the black clouds and seemed not unlikely to indemnify them by its radiance for all the storms with which fickle fortune had overwhelmed them. A presentiment of this gentle light which was to beam upon his gloomy path possessed Ferber when he stood for the first time beside the cradle of his first-born, a daughter, and gazed into the lovely eyes which smiled upon him from the baby face. All Frau Ferber's friends had been unanimously of opinion that the little girl was a charming creature, a wonderfully gifted child; indeed, they had declared it did not look in the least like an ordinary baby, did not appear to belong to the class of miserable little wretches, who, red as lobsters, seem determined to scream their way through the world; but,—here they had broken off; and it was intimated that were it not for fear of the sneers of their liege lords, and the utterly prosaic tendencies of the nineteenth century, they should certainly suspect that some benevolent fairy had been at work in this case.

They contended as to who should be so far favoured as to hold the little creature at the baptismal font, and should show the deepest tenderness for the little god-daughter, declaring that the day of her baptism could never be effaced from their remembrance; but this demand upon their memories was altogether too great, for when Ferber fell into difficulties, selfishness passed its finger over the recorded day, and no trace of it remained in their minds.

This change, which little Elizabeth experienced in the ninth year of her existence, disturbed her not at all. Her probable fairy protectress had, in addition to other rich gifts, endowed her in her cradle with an invincible joyousness of temperament and great force of will; so she took from her mother's hand her scanty evening meal as gratefully and gaily as she had once received the inexhaustible delicacies presented to her by admiring god-parents; and when on Christmas-eve the room was adorned only by a poor little Christmas-tree hung with a few apples and gilded nuts, the child did not seem to remember the time when friends had crowded around to deck its boughs with all imaginable toys.

Ferber educated his daughter himself. She never attended a school of any kind, an omission in her training which cannot, unfortunately, in the present age, be regarded as anything but an advantage, when we see how many young girls leave school with far more knowledge upon some subjects than is at all desirable or pleasing to the anxious mother, who strives at home to preserve unsoiled her child's purity of mind and heart, and often does not dream how her tender care is made of no avail by the taint which one impure nature in the school will communicate, and which may perhaps colour an entire after-life.

Elizabeth's pliant mind was finely developed beneath the control of her gifted parents. Thoroughly to understand the study which occupied her, and to appropriate its results in such a manner as to make them inalienably her own were duties which she most conscientiously fulfilled. But she gave herself to the study of music with an ardor that inspires a human being only when engaged in a pursuit felt to be especially his own. She soon far outstripped her mother, who was her instructress, and as when a child she would often leave her playthings if she saw a cloud upon her father's brow, to sit on his knee and divert him with some tale of wonder, thus, as a girl, she would charm away the demon of gloom from her father's mind by strange and delicious melodies which lay like pearls in the depths of her soul, until she brought them to light for the first time for his relief and enjoyment. And this was not the only blessing springing from her rare talent for music. The exquisite touch upon the piano, in the garret in which the family lived, attracted the attention of several of the more aristocratic inhabitants of the house, and Elizabeth soon had two or three pupils in music, and had lately been employed in a large school as teacher of the piano, thus sensibly increasing the means of subsistence of the family.

Here let us resume the thread of our story, and we shall not shrink, I hope, from the trouble that we must take in following our heroine through the wet streets upon this stormy evening to her home and her parents.

CHAPTER II.

Even during the long walk through the streets, alternately straight and crooked, gloomy and bright, Elizabeth enjoyed in imagination the delicious sensation of comfort that the sight of the cosey room at home always caused her. There sat her father at his writing-table with its little study-lamp, ready to raise his pale face with a smile when Elizabeth entered. He would take his pen, which had been travelling so busily over the paper for hours, in his left hand, and with his right draw his daughter down beside him to kiss her forehead. Her mother, who, with her work-basket at her feet, usually sat close beside her husband that she might share the light of his study-lamp, would welcome her with tender loving eyes, and point to Elizabeth's slippers, which her care had placed by the stove to warm. Upon the stove apples would be roasting with a cheering hiss, and in the warm corner beside it was the sofa-table, where the tea-kettle would be singing merrily above its spirit-lamp, whose weak, blue light illumined the regiment of tin soldiers, which her only brother, Ernst, a child six years of age, was busily drilling.

Elizabeth mounted to the fourth story before she reached the dark, narrow passage which led to her father's rooms. Here she hastily took off her bonnet and placed upon her lovely fair hair a boy's cap, trimmed with fur, which she drew from under her cloak. Then she entered the room, where little Ernst ran toward her with a shout of joy.

But this evening the light shone from the sofa-table in the usually dark corner by the stove, while the writing-table was left neglected in the gloom. Her father sat upon the sofa, with his arm around her mother's waist; there was a joyous light upon the countenances of both, and, although her mother had evidently been weeping, Elizabeth instantly perceived that her tears had been tears of joy. She stood still upon the threshold of the door in great astonishment, and must have presented a most comical appearance with the child's cap surmounting her amazed countenance, for both father and mother laughed aloud. Elizabeth gaily joined in their laughter, and placed the fur cap upon her little brother's dark curls.

"There, my darling," she said, tenderly taking his rosy face between her hands and kissing it, "that is yours; and there is still something left to help on your housekeeping, mother dear," she continued, with a happy smile, as she handed her mother four shining thalers. "They gave me my first five thalers of salary at school to-day."

"But, Elsbeth," said her mother, with the tears in her eyes, as she drew her down to kiss her, "Ernst's last year's cap is still quite respectable, and you needed a pair of warm winter gloves much more."

"I, mother? just feel my hands; although I have been in the street for an hour almost, they are as warm as if I had been holding them before the fire. No; new gloves would be a most superfluous luxury. Our boy is growing taller and stouter, and his cap has not kept pace with him; so I consider the cap a necessary expense."

"Ah, you good sister!" cried the child with delight; "even the little baron on the first story has not such a charming cap as this. How fine it will look when I go hunting, hey, papa?"

"Hunting!" laughed Elizabeth; "are you going to shoot the unfortunate sparrows in the Thiergarten?"

"Oh, what a miserable guesser you are, Madam Elsie!" the boy rejoined, gleefully. "In the Thiergarten, indeed!" he added, more seriously; "that would be pretty sport. No, in the forest,—the real forest,—where the deer and hares are so thick that you don't even have to take aim when you want to shoot them."

"I should like to hear what your uncle would say to this view of the noble chase," said his father with a smile, taking up a letter from the table and handing it to Elizabeth.

"Read this, my child," said he; "it is from your 'forester uncle,' as you call him, in Thuringia."

Elizabeth glanced over the first few lines, and then read aloud:

"The prince, who sometimes prefers a dish of bacon and sauerkraut at my table to the best efforts of his French cook in the castle of L——, passed several hours with me at my lodge yesterday. He was very condescending, and informed me that he purposed employing an assistant forester, or rather forester's clerk, for he saw that my duties were too onerous. I seized upon my opportunity,—the game was within shot, and if I missed I had nothing to lose but a couple of charges fired into the air; now was my time.

"So I told him how the jade, fortune, had played the very devil with you for this many a year, and how, in spite of your fine talents and acquirements, poverty had knocked at your door. My old master knew well what I was driving at, for I spoke, as I always do, in good German. Thus far in my life every one has understood what I had to say. It is only the fops and fools of his court who fawn around him, who would persuade him that good, honest German is too coarse for royal ears, and that he must always be addressed in French. Well, my old master said that he would like to offer you this situation as forester's clerk, because he thought that with regard to myself,—and here he said a couple of things that you need not hear, but which delighted me,—old fellow as I am,—quite as much as when in old times, upon examination-day, the schoolmaster used to say, 'Carl, you have done yourself credit to-day.' Well, his highness has commissioned me to write to you, and he will arrange matters. Three hundred and fifty thalers salary, and your fuel. Now think it over; it is not so poor an offer, and the green forest is a thousand times pleasanter than your confounded attics, where the neighbours' cats are forever squalling, and where your eyes are blinded by the smoke of a million chimneys.

"You must not think that I am one of those wheedling, parasitical fellows who use their master's favour to benefit all their own kith and kin. No; I can tell you that if you were not what you are, that is, if you were not really talented and well educated, I would bite my tongue out before I would recommend you to my master; and, on the other side, I should always try to secure in his service such an honest, capable fellow as yourself. No offence; you know I always like a plain statement of a plain case.

"But there is another matter to be considered. You ought to live with me, and it could be very easily arranged if you were a bachelor, whom four walls would content, with a chest for his solitary wardrobe. But, unfortunately, there is no possible room in my lonely old rat's-hole of a forest-lodge for an entire family. It is in rather a tumble-down condition, and has needed a doctor for some time, but I suppose the authorities will do nothing for it until the old balconies come crumbling about my ears. The nearest village is half a league, and the nearest town a league from the lodge; you cannot possibly walk these distances every day, in the miserable weather that we have here sometimes.

"Now old Sabina, my housekeeper, who was born in the nearest village, has made a wild suggestion which I herewith impart to you. Old castle Gnadeck, the deceased Baron Gnadewitz's brilliant legacy to you, is, as I have told you, situated at about a rifle's shot distance from the lodge. Well, Sabina says that when she was a strong hearty girl,—which, by the way, must have been something beyond a quarter of a century ago,—she was a chambermaid in the Gnadewitz household. Then the new castle was not entirely furnished, and did not suffice to contain the crowd of guests yearly invited to the great hunt. And so part of the building connecting the two principal wings of the old castle was somewhat repaired and furnished. Sabina had to make and air the beds and attend to the rooms, to her great terror, and no wonder,—her old brain is perfectly crammed with all sorts of witch and ghost stories,—for the rest she is a most respectable person, and rules my household with a steady rein.

"She maintains most firmly that this part of the castle cannot be in a crumbling condition, for it was then in an excellent state of preservation, and would, she is sure, afford a capital shelter for you and yours. May be she is right; but are your children bold enough to brave the ghostly inhabitants that are said to haunt those old walls?

"You know how vexed I was about your worthless legacy, and that I have never once been able, since the death of the sainted Wolf von Gnadewitz, to induce myself to visit the old ruin. But after hearing Sabina's tale yesterday afternoon, I made one of my men climb a tree which stood upon the only spot which could give you a glimpse into the robber's nest, and he declared that everything had fallen into decay there. And this morning I have been to the authorities in the town, but they would not give me the keys of the castle without special permission from your wife, and made, besides, as much fuss about it as if the treasures of Golconda lay hid in the mouldy old rooms. None of those who placed the seals upon the doors could tell me what sort of a place it was, for they never entered it, under the impression that the ceiling might fall and dash out their prudent brains, but contented themselves with placing a dozen official seals as large as your hand upon the principal entrance door. I should very much like to investigate matters with you, so pray decide quickly and start with your family as soon as possible."

Here Elizabeth dropped the letter and looked with sparkling eyes at her father.

"Well, how have you decided, father dear?" she asked hastily.

"Ah," he replied gravely, "it is quite a hard task to tell you our resolution, for I see by your face that you would not for the world exchange this gay populous city for the loneliness and quiet of the Thuringian forest. Still, you must know that my application to the Prince of L—— for the place in question lies sealed in that envelope. However, it is only reasonable that your wishes should be consulted in some degree, and we can be induced to leave you here in case——"

"Ah, no; if Elizabeth will not go I would rather stay here, too," interrupted the little boy, clinging anxiously to his sister.

"Never fear, my darling," she said to him with a laugh; "I shall find a place in the carriage, and if I could not, you know I am as bold as a soldier, and can run like a hare. My longing for the greenwood, which has been the fairy-land of my imagination ever since I was a very little child, shall be my compass, and I shall get along bravely. What will papa do when, some evening, a weary way-worn traveller, with ragged shoes and empty pockets, prays for admission at the gate of the old castle?"

"Ah, then, indeed, we must admit you," said her father, smiling, "if we would not draw down upon our crumbling roof the hostility of all good spirits who protect courage and innocence. But you will have to pass by the old castle if you wish to find us, and knock at some modest peasant hut in the valley, for the ruined old pile will scarcely afford us an asylum."

"I am afraid not, indeed," said his wife. "We shall work our way laboriously through wild hedges and thick underbrush, like the unfortunate suitors of the Sleeping Beauty, to find at last——"

"Poetry itself!" cried Elizabeth. "Why, the first delicious bloom will be brushed from our woodland life if we cannot live in the old castle! Certainly there must be four sound walls and a whole roof in some one of its old towers, and with heads to plan and strong willing hands to execute, the rest can be very easily arranged. We will stop up cracks with moss, nail boards over doorways that have lost their doors, and paper our four walls ourselves; we can cover the worm-eaten floors with homemade straw mats; declare war to the death upon the gray-coated, four-footed little thieves who would invade our larder, and soon banish all cobwebs by a good broom skilfully wielded."

With glowing looks, quite carried away by her dreams of the future home in the fresh green forest, she went to the piano and opened it. It was an old, worn-out instrument, whose hoarse, weak tones harmonized perfectly with its shabby exterior; but, nevertheless, beneath Elizabeth's fingers Mendelssohn's song, "Through the dark green Forest," rang deliciously through the little room.

Her parents sat quietly listening. Little Ernst dropped asleep. Without, the howling of the storm was lulled, but the snow was driving noiselessly past the uncurtained window in huge flakes. The opposite chimneys, no longer smoking, had put on thick white night-caps, and looked stiffly and coldly, like peevish old age, into the little attic room, which enclosed, in the midst of the snow-storm, a perfect spring of joy and gaiety within its four walls.

CHAPTER III.

Whitsuntide! A word that will thrill with its magic the human soul as long as trees burst into leaf, larks soar trilling aloft, and clear spring skies laugh above us. A word which can awaken an echo of spring in hearts encrusted with selfishness and greed of gain, chilled by the snows of age, or deadened by grief and care.

Whitsuntide is at hand. A gentle breeze flutters over the Thuringian mountains, and brushes from their brows the last remains of the snow which whirls mistily into the air and leaves its old abiding-place in the guise of luminous spring clouds. Freed from their wintry garments, the mountains deck their rugged brows with wreaths of young strawberry vines and bilberries. In the valley below, the rippling trout-stream is flowing forth from the dark forest directly across the flower-strewn meadow.

The lonely saw-mill is clacking merrily, while its low thatched roof shines white with the fallen blossoms of the sheltering fruit trees.

Before the windows of the scattered huts of the wood-cutters and of the villagers many an accomplished bullfinch was singing in his little cage the airs which were the fruits of a course of instruction in high art, daring the winter in the hot, close room of his master. And his brothers in the forest were trilling wilder but far sweeter lays, for their little throats inhaled the clear air of freedom.

Where, a few weeks before, the melted snow had foamed down from the mountain tops in a bed created by its own torrent, beautiful moss was now weaving a soft carpet, that would soon quite conceal the scarred breast of the mountain, while here and there, through the thick green the silver thread of some little stream glittered in the sunlight.

Upon the highway running through a charming valley of the Thuringian forest the Ferbers were travelling, in a well-packed carriage, toward their new home. It was very early in the morning; the bell from a distant church-tower had just tolled the hour of three, wherefore only the shabby old sign-post by the roadside and a herd of stately stags were permitted the sight of a happy face that looked upon this lovely forest for the first time.

Elizabeth leaned far out of the window of the dark carriage, and inhaled deep draughts of the invigorating air, which she maintained had already cleared away from her eyes and lungs all the dust of the city. Ferber sat opposite, sunk in thought. He too was refreshed by the beauty and tender grace of the forest; but he was more deeply moved by the delight in the eyes of his child, who was so susceptible to the charms of nature and so unspeakably grateful for the change in their circumstances. How busy her hands had been since the Royal answer to Ferber's application for the new office had been received! There had been much to do. She had shared faithfully in all the cares which their departure from the city brought upon her parents. It is true the prince had sent his new official a considerable sum of money for travelling expenses, and the forester uncle, too, had shown his usual generosity; but with the greatest economy it did not suffice, and therefore Elizabeth had employed every hour which she usually had for recreation in sewing for a large ready-made linen establishment,—occupying herself thus with her needle for many a night, after her unsuspecting parents were sleeping soundly.

There had been one bitter experience amid all the busy hurry, which had cost the young girl many tears. She had seen her dear piano borne off upon the shoulders of two strong men to its new possessor. It had to be sold for a few thalers, because it was old and frail,—too frail to be transported to the new home. Ah, it had been so true a friend to the family! Its thin, quavering voice had sounded in Elizabeth's ears tender and dear as the voice of her mother. And now, probably, unfeeling children would thrum upon its venerable keys, and tease the old instrument to speak more strongly, until it should be mute forever. But this sorrow was past, and lay behind her, with much beside which she had sacrificed and endured silently; and as she sat looking out into the morning twilight, with eyes sparkling with delight,—eyes that seemed to read behind the misty veil of the dawn all kinds of brilliant prophecies for the future,—who could have discerned in that figure, glowing with the elasticity of youth, one trace of the fatigue of the last busy weeks?

For another half hour the travellers drove along the smooth, level highway, and then turned aside into the thick forest by a well-kept carriage-road. The sun was just rising in the eastern sky, and shot his rays upon the earth in splendid amazement at the diamonds with which she had adorned herself during his absence. In the night a heavy shower had come up, much rain had fallen, and the large drops were still hanging upon twig and leaf, falling pattering upon the roof of the carriage whenever the postillion touched one of the overarching boughs with his whip. What a glorious forest! From the thick underbrush at their feet the trees reared their colossal trunks, and above, their boughs intertwined in a fraternal embrace as though determined to defend their peaceful, quiet home from light and air as from two deadly enemies. Only here and there a slender, green-tinted sunbeam would slip from bough to bough down upon the feathery grass and the little strawberry-blossoms, sprinkled everywhere like snow-flakes, even laying their little white heads impertinently upon the road.

After a short drive the wood grew less dense, and soon the retired Lodge appeared in the midst of a meadow in the heart of the forest. The postillion sounded his horn. A tremendous barking of dogs was heard; and with a loud whirr a large flock of doves soared, terrified, into the air from the pointed gable of the house.

A man in a hunting uniform was standing at the open door,—a gigantic figure, with a huge beard that almost covered his breast. He shaded his eyes with his hands as he looked keenly at the approaching carriage, but suddenly running down the steps, he tore open the door, and threw his arms around Ferber, as the latter sprang out. For one instant the brothers stood in a close embrace; then the forester gently released the slender figure of the younger, and, holding him by the shoulder at arm's length, gazed searchingly into his pale worn countenance.

"Poor Adolph!" he said at last, and his deep voice trembled with emotion. "Has fate brought you to this? But wait awhile, we will have you sound and well again; it is not too late. A thousand welcomes to you! And now let us stick together until the last great trumpet call, when we shall not be asked whether we will stay together or not."

He tried to master his emotion, and helped his sister-in-law and little Ernst, whom he embraced and kissed, to descend from the carriage.

"Well," said he, "you must have been knocked up at an early hour, I must say, and that's hardly the thing for women."

"What can you be thinking of, uncle?" cried Elizabeth. "We are no slug-a-beds, and know exactly how the sun looks when he says good morning to the world."

"Halloa!" cried the forester with a laugh of surprise. "Who is that quarrelling with me in the corner of the carriage? Come out instantly, little one."

"I, little? Well, sir, you will be finely surprised when I do get out and you see what a tall, stately maiden I am!"

With these words Elizabeth sprang down from the high carriage and stood on tiptoe, drawing herself up to her full height beside him. But although her slender, graceful figure was something above middle size, she seemed at this moment like a pretty king-bird measuring itself with an eagle.

"Look," she said, in a rather disappointed tone, "I am nearly up to your shoulder, and that is more than tall enough for a respectable girl."

Her uncle, holding himself as erect as possible, looked down upon her with a roguish smile of great self-satisfaction for a moment, then suddenly picked her up in his arms as though she had been a feather, and amid the laughter of the others carried her into the house, calling in a voice of thunder—

"Sabina, Sabina, come here, and I will show you how the wrens look in B——."

He put his terrified burden down in the hall as gently and carefully as though he were handling some brittle plaything, took her head tenderly between his large hands, kissed her forehead again and again, and said, "That such a queen of Liliput, such a moonshine elf, should dream of being as large as her tall uncle! But, forest fairy as you are, you know all about the sun, for your head is covered with its beams."

As she was carried into the house upon her uncle's arm the girl's hat had fallen from her head, revealing a mass of fair hair, the golden colour of which was all the more remarkable as her delicately pencilled eyebrows and long lashes were coal black.

In the mean while an old woman entered from a side door, and at the head of the first flight of stairs several boyish faces appeared, which, however, vanished as soon as they found themselves perceived by the forester. "Oh, you need not run away," he cried, laughing. "I have seen you peeping. They are my assistants," he turned to his brother; "the fellows are as curious as sparrows, and to-day I really cannot blame them," and he glanced archly at Elizabeth, who, standing aside, was binding her loosened braids around her head. Then he took the old woman by the hand and presented her, with an air of comical solemnity: "Fräulein Sabina Holzin, Minister of the Interior to the Forest Lodge, High Constable in all stable and farm affairs, and to every one therein concerned, and, lastly, absolute monarch in the kitchen department. While she is putting the dinner on the table do just as she tells you, and all will go well with you; but, if she begins with her stock of old proverbs and ghost stories, get out of her way as quickly as possible, for there is no end to them. And now,"—he turned to the smiling old woman, who was a miracle of ugliness, and who yet prepossessed all in her favour by her honest eyes, by an expression of roguery and fun that lighted up her face, and especially by the spotless cleanliness of her attire,—"now bring us as quickly as you can whatever pantry and cellar will afford: I know you baked our Whitsuntide cakes earlier than usual, that our travellers might have something to refresh them after their fatigue."

With these words he opened the door opposite to the one from the kitchen through which the old woman disappeared, and showed his guests into a large apartment with bow-windows. But Elizabeth lingered behind, looking through the door which led into the court-yard, for, between the white picket fences which shut in the feathered tribes on each side of the enclosure, she saw gay beds of flowers, while three or four late-blossoming apple trees stretched their rosy bloom-laden branches over one corner of the space. The garden was large, climbing a short distance up the mountain side by terraces, and even enclosing within its realm a beautiful group of old beeches, outlying members of the forest. While Elizabeth, entranced, stood thus in the hall, the door of a side wing of the house opened and a young girl stepped out into the court-yard. She was strikingly beautiful, although her figure was rather diminutive, a defect for which nature had seemed to wish to indemnify her by gifting her with a pair of large eyes that glowed like dazzling black suns. Her abundant dark hair was arranged evidently with an eye to coquettish effect, and several charmingly curled locks had escaped just above the pale forehead. Her dress, too, although of simple material, betrayed in its arrangement the greatest care, and the observer could not but suspect that the skirt was so artistically looped not merely that the hem might be kept from the dust, but also with an eye to the neat little boot which it revealed, and which certainly was not made to be hidden beneath the heavy woollen stuff of the dress.

She had in her hand a bowl full of grain, and threw a handful upon the stones at her feet. A great noise ensued; the doves fluttered down from the roof, the fowls left their roosts and nests with loud cacklings, and the watch-dog felt it his duty to assist in the universal clamour by barking loudly.

Elizabeth was astonished. It is true, her uncle had been married, but he never had any children, as she knew; who then was this young girl, of whom no mention had been made in his letter? She descended the steps that led to the court-yard, and approached the stranger: "Do you live at the Lodge?" she asked, kindly.

The black eyes were riveted searchingly upon her for one moment, with a look of unmistakable surprise, then an expression of annoyance flitted across her delicate lips, which closed more tightly than before; the eyelids fell over the glittering eyes, and she turned silently away, as though entirely unconscious of the presence or address of any one, and continued feeding the fowls with the grain.

Just then Sabina passed through the hall with the coffee-tray. She beckoned confidentially to Elizabeth, who stood amazed, and, when she drew near, bade her follow her into the house, saying: "Come, child, you can do nothing with her."

In the sitting-room, Elizabeth found all as comfortable and happy as if they had lived together for years. Her mother was sitting in a large arm-chair, which the forester had pushed near a window that commanded a lovely view down one of the vistas of the forest. A large striped cat had sprung confidingly into her lap, where it was purring with satisfaction beneath the small hand that was gently stroking it. And for little Ernst, the four walls of the room were a perfect museum of all imaginable curiosities. He had climbed into one chair after another, and was then standing in speechless admiration before a glass case containing a gorgeous collection of butterflies. The two men were seated, side by side, upon the lounge, in deep consultation concerning the future abode of the family, and, as Elizabeth entered, she heard her uncle say, "Well, if the old ruin on the mountain cannot afford you shelter, you must stay here with me. I can move my writing-table and all my other matters out of your way for awhile, and then I will besiege the authorities in the town until they consent to add another story to the right wing of my old house."

Elizabeth took off her travelling cloak, and assisted old Sabina to set the table. The first shadow had fallen upon the enjoyment that had filled her soul. Never before had any advance of hers been met with unkindness. That she owed this exemption from the ill humour of others to her beauty, the charm of her manner, and the childlike purity of her nature, which exercised an unconscious influence upon all around her, had never occurred to her. She had taken it for granted that she should experience only kindness from all, since she was conscious of meaning well by all the world. Her disappointment at the repulse was all the greater, because the sight of a young girl of about her own age had caused her such surprise and joy; and the beautiful face of the stranger had interested her deeply. The studied arrangement of the girl's dress had not struck her, as she herself had never yet known the desire of heightening her attractions by the aids of the toilet. Her father and mother had always assured her that no time spent in the cultivation of mind and heart was lost, and that if they were what they should be, her exterior could never be unattractive, whatever might be the form with which nature had endowed her.

The thoughtful expression of Elizabeth's face did not escape her mother's notice. She called her to her, and her daughter began an account of the meeting; but at the first words the forester turned towards her. A deep wrinkle appeared between his bushy eyebrows, and made his face dark and gloomy.

"Indeed," he said, "have you seen her already? Well, then, let me tell you who and what she is. I took her into my house some years ago, that she might assist Sabina in her housekeeping. She is a distant relative of my deceased wife, and has no parents, brothers nor sisters. I wished to do good, but I have provided myself with a perpetual scourge,—although I do not deserve it. She had not been here a month before I discovered that she had not a single healthy thought in her entire composition; she is a mass of exaggerated ideas and inconceivable arrogance. I had half a mind to send her back to the place she came from, but Sabina, who has still less cause than I to love her, entreated me not to do it. Why, I cannot tell, for the girl gave her a great deal of trouble, and was insolent. I did all I could to tame her haughty spirit by giving her regular duties to perform, and for awhile matters went on pretty well. But about a year ago a certain Baroness Lessen came to live over at Lindhof,—that is the name of the former Gnadewitz property, which the heir-at-law sold to a Herr von Walde. The possessor himself, who has neither wife nor child, is a kind of antiquary, travels a great deal, and leaves his only sister under the charge of the aforesaid baroness, more's the pity, for she turns everything upside down. Years ago, when I used to hear great piety spoken of, all my veneration was excited, and I wished at least to take my cap off; but now, when I hear of such things, I clench my fist and pull my hat down over my eyes, for the world has greatly changed. The Baroness Lessen belongs to those pious souls who grow cruel, hard, and narrow-minded out of what they call pure fear of the Lord; who persecute a fellow-creature who does not cast his eyes down hypocritically, but lifts them to heaven where God dwells, as persistently as a hound hunts down game. This is the herd to which my excellent niece belongs; there could not be a better soil for all the weeds that her brain generates, and all sorts of annoyances are the consequence. She made acquaintance with a lady's-maid over there, and spent all her leisure time with her. At first I was content enough, until all at once she began with her plans,—for our conversion, as she calls it. Sabina was a miserable sinner, because she would not leave off work, at least ten times a day, to pray; the poor old thing, who never misses church every Sunday at Lindhof, even through wind and rain, and often with rheumatism racking her old bones, and who has lived a faithful, laborious life, infinitely more religious than sixty years of idleness spent upon her knees. And then my fine moralist attacked me; but there she found her match, and contented herself with a single effort. Then I forbade all intercourse with Lindhof; but my prohibition was of little use, for whenever my back is turned she takes occasion to slip over there. Of course, there can be no question of any gratitude towards me; I have no bond of union with her as her guardian, and that makes my task of guiding and guarding her doubly difficult. God only knows what insane idea has taken possession of her now, but for two months she has been perfectly dumb, not only here at home, but everywhere. For that space of time not a single word has passed her lips. Neither sternness nor gentle entreaty produces the slightest effect upon her. She attends to her duties just as she used to do, eats and drinks like every one else, and is not one whit less vain or wise in her own conceit. But because she grew pale, and did not look very well, I consulted a physician, who had formerly known her, with regard to her health. He assured me that her physical health was excellent, and advised that she should be treated with gentle firmness, as the minds of several of her family had previously been somewhat affected. He said, too, that she would grow tired of her entire silence, and would begin talking some fine day like a magpie. I am content to wait; but in the mean time it is a sore trial to me. All my life I have longed to have happy faces around me, and would rather eat bread and salt with cheerful people than the costliest dainties with morose companions. Come, my Fair one with the golden locks," he concluded, stroking Elizabeth's head with his huge hand, "push your mother's arm-chair up to the table, tie a napkin round the neck of that little rogue who is staring his eyes out at my case of rifles, and let us breakfast together, for you all need repose, and must rest your weary limbs after your long journey. After dinner we must begin to think of Castle Gnadeck; but first strengthen your eyes with a little sleep, lest they should be dazzled by the splendour which will flash upon them up there."

After breakfast, while her father and mother were asleep and little Ernst was dreaming in a large bed of the wonders of the forest-lodge, Elizabeth unpacked in the upper room, which her uncle had resigned to her, all that was necessary for the coming night. She would not for the world have gone to sleep. She went repeatedly to the window and looked across to the wooded mountain which arose behind the lodge. There, above the tops of the trees, she could see a black streak, which stood out distinctly against the clear blue sky. That was, as old Sabina said, an ancient iron flag-staff upon the roof of Castle Gnadeck, from which in times long gone by the proud banner of the Gnadewitzes had flouted the air. Was there behind those trees the asylum for which she longed, where her parents might rest their feet, weary with long wandering upon foreign soil?

And then her eyes sought the court-yard below, but the dumb girl did not appear again. She had not come to breakfast, and seemed to wish to avoid all intercourse with the guests at the lodge. For this Elizabeth was very sorry. Although her uncle's account had not been promising, a youthful spirit is not quick to resign its illusions, and would rather be undeceived by the bursting of its gay bubble than admonished by the experience of age. The beautiful girl, who could so determinedly conceal her secret behind closed lips, became doubly interesting to her, and she exhausted herself in conjectures as to the cause of this silence.

CHAPTER IV.

After a most cheerful dinner, Sabina brought from the cupboard a pipe, which she filled and handed with a match to the forester.

"What are you thinking of, Sabina?" he said, rejecting it with a comical air of displeased surprise. "Do you think I could find it in my heart to sit here and smoke a quiet pipe while Elsie's little feet are dancing with impatience to run up the mountain, and she is longing to poke her little nose into the magic castle? No, I think we had better start at once upon our voyage of discovery."

All were soon ready. The forester gave his arm to his sister-in-law, and they started off through the court and garden. After they had gone a little way, they were joined by a mason from the neighbouring village, whom the forester had sent for that he might be at hand if necessary.

They walked up the mountain by a tolerably steep and narrow path through the thick forest, but this path gradually broadened, and at last led to a small open space, on one side of which arose what seemed like a tall gray rock.

"Here I have the pleasure," said the forester to his brother, with a sarcastic smile, "of revealing to you the estate of the lamented Baron von Gnadewitz in all its grandeur."

They were standing before a lofty wall, which looked like one solid block of granite. They could see nothing of any buildings that might be behind it, because the surrounding forest was too thick and close to allow of a sufficiently distant point of observation. The forester led the way along the wall, at the base of which thick underbrush was growing, until he reached a large oaken door with an iron grating in the upper half of it. Here he had had the matted growth of underbrush cleared away, and he now produced a bunch of large keys which had been handed over to Frau Ferber as she had passed through L—— the day before.

The utmost exertions of the three men were necessary before the rusty locks and bars would move, but at last the door creaked, or rather crashed upon its hinges, and a thick cloud of dust floated up into the air. The explorers entered and found themselves in a court-yard bounded on three sides by buildings. Opposite them was the imposing front of the castle, with a flight of broad stone steps, and a clumsy iron balustrade, leading to the entrance door upon the first story. Running from each side of the main building were gloomy colonnades, whose granite pillars and arches seemed to defy the tooth of time. In the centre of the court-yard a group of old chestnut trees stretched their aged boughs above a huge basin, in the midst of which couched four stone lions with wide open jaws. Formerly four powerful streams of water must have poured through them from the bowels of the earth, filling the entire basin; but now there was only a small stream trickling through the threatening teeth of one of the monsters, sufficing to sprinkle with moisture the grass and weeds growing in the cracks of the stone basin, and, by its low, mournful ripple, giving a faint suggestion of life in this wilderness. The outer walls of the structure and the colonnades were all that could be regarded without terror in this space. The window frames, from which every pane of glass had been broken, showed the sad desolation within. In some rooms the ceilings had already fallen in; in others, the joists were bent as though the lightest touch might send them crashing down. Even the stone steps seemed half hanging in the air,—some mossy fragments had already become detached from them, and had rolled into the centre of the court-yard.

"We can do nothing here," said Ferber. "Let us go on."

Through a deep, dark portal they entered another court-yard, which, although much larger than the first, by its striking irregularity produced an impression of far greater desolation. Here, a dreary, crumbling pile of masonry projected far out, and formed a dark corner never visited by a sunbeam; there, a clumsy tower shot into the air, throwing a deep shadow upon the wing at its back. An old elder bush, leading a straggling existence in one corner, with its leaves covered with fallen crumbs of mortar, and some dry grasses between the stones of the pavement, made the scene yet more desolate. No noise disturbed the deathlike silence reigning here. Even the jackdaws soaring in the air above ceased their chatter, and the echoes of the footsteps upon the stone pavement had a ghostly sound.

"Yes, those old knights," said Ferber, almost appalled at the sight of the desolation around him, "have heaped up these piles of granite, and thought that this cradle of their race would proclaim the splendour of their name through all coming centuries. Each has altered and arranged his inheritance after his own taste and convenience, as we see from these different kinds of architecture, and lived as if there were no end to it all."

"And yet each lodged here but for a little space," interrupted the forester, "and paid his landlord, the earth, for his lodging with his own crumbling bones,—now turned to dust. But let us go on. Brr—rr!—it makes me shiver. Death everywhere,—nothing but death!"

"Do you call that death, uncle?" suddenly exclaimed Elizabeth, who had hitherto been awed and silent, pointing, as she spoke, through a door which was half concealed by an interposing column. There, behind a grating, fresh sunny green was shining, and young climbing roses leaned their blossoms against the iron bars.

Elizabeth ran towards the door, and, exerting all her strength, pushed it open. The space upon which she entered had probably been the former flower-garden, but such a name could scarcely be applied to the tangled wilderness of green, where not even the narrowest vestige of a path could be discerned, and where here and there only the mutilated remains of a statue appeared among the mass of shrubs, bushes, and parasitical plants. A wild grape-vine had climbed to the upper story of the building, and taken firm hold there of the window-sills,—its green branches and wreaths falling thence like a shower upon the wild roses and lilac bushes beneath. And in this secluded, blooming spot of ground, a buzzing and humming were heard, as if Spring had assembled here her entire host of winged insects. Countless butterflies fluttered over the flowers, and golden beetles were running glittering across the broad fern leaves at Elizabeth's feet. And above this little world of bloom and busy life several fruit trees and magnificent lindens waved their leafy crests, while upon a slight elevation were seen the remains of what had once been a pavilion.

The garden was surrounded upon three sides by buildings; the square was completed by a high, green wall, which had been constructed of earth, like a dam, and above which the trees of the forest waved a greeting to their neighbours within. Here were also the same signs of decay,—tolerably well preserved outer walls,—complete ruin within. Only one building of two stories, connecting two high wings, attracted attention from its closed appearance. The light did not shine through it, as through its doorless and windowless companions; its flat roof, finished in front and at the back by a heavy stone balustrade, must have bidden defiance to time and tempest, as had also the gray window-panes which peeped out here and there from the tangled growth of vines that covered everything. The forester measured it with a keen glance, and declared that this must be Sabina's famous building,—possibly the interior might not be in as crumbling a condition as the rest of the castle,—only he could not understand how they were to get into the old swallow's nest. Certainly, the rank growth around the base of the walls would have obscured all trace of steps or door, even were there any such entrance. They determined, therefore, to venture up into one of the large side wings by a worn but tolerably secure flight of stone steps, and thus attempt to arrive at the interior of the connecting building. They succeeded in gaining ingress to the tall wing, although they could keep their footing only by clinging to the uneven walls. They first entered a large saloon which had the blue sky for a ceiling, and whose only decoration was a few green bushes growing through its walls. Remnants of galleries, worm-eaten joists, and various fragments of frescoed ceiling were heaped up in piles, over which the explorers had to scramble as best they might. Then followed a long suite of rooms in the same utterly desolate condition. Upon some of the walls fragments of family portraits were still hanging, upon which, strangely and comically enough, only an eye, or, perhaps, a pair of delicate folded hands, or a mail-clad, theatrically-posed leg, was yet distinctly to be traced. At length they reached the last apartment, and stood before a high-arched doorway which had evidently been bricked up.

"Aha!" said Ferber, "here they intended to cut off this building from the universal desolation. I think that before we venture any further upon this break-neck expedition it would be well to knock out these stones."

His proposal was at once favourably received, and the mason began his task; he soon penetrated into a recess in the wall, which he assured them was double at this spot. The other two men lent their assistance, and a thick oaken door was revealed behind the masonry that they cleared away. This door was not locked, and yielded readily to the mason's strong arm. They entered an entirely dark, close room. One slender sunbeam, straying through a crack showed them where to find a window; the bolt of the shutter, rusty from long disuse, resisted for some time the strength of the forester, and the trees upon the outside opposed an additional obstacle to their exertions. At last the shutter yielded with a crash; the golden-green sunlight streamed in through a high bow-window and disclosed an apartment not broad, but very deep, the walls of which were hung with Gobelin tapestry. Upon each of the four corners of the ceiling were painted the arms of the Gnadewitzes. To the surprise of all, this room was entirely furnished as a sleeping apartment. Two canopied beds, with hangings dingy with age, that occupied the two long walls of the room, were all made up; the pillows were covered with fine linen cases, and the silken coverlid still preserved its colour and texture. Everything that could conduce to the comfort of an aristocratic occupant was here, buried, indeed, beneath a mass of dust, but in a state of excellent preservation. Beyond this apartment, and opening into it, was another much larger, with two windows; it was also completely furnished, although in antique style, and evidently with furniture hunted up from various other rooms for the purpose. An antique writing-table, its top most artistically inlaid and resting upon strangely carved claw feet, harmonized but poorly with the more modern form of the crimson sofa; and the gilt frames, in which hung several well-painted hunting pictures, did not accord with the silver mountings of the huge mirror. Nevertheless, nothing was wanting that could complete the solid comfort of the room. A thick, though somewhat faded carpet was laid upon the floor, and a large antique timepiece stood beneath the mirror. A small boudoir, also furnished, and from which a door led to a vestibule and a flight of steps, opened from the larger apartment. Behind these rooms were three others of a similar size, with windows looking upon the garden; one of these, containing two beds and pine furniture, was evidently intended for the servants.

"Well done!" cried the forester with a smile of satisfaction; "here is an establishment that exceeds the wildest flights of our modest fancy. If the sainted Gnadewitz could see us now he would turn in his leaden coffin. All this we owe, I suppose, to the neglect of a housekeeper or to the forgetfulness of some childish, old steward."

"But do you think we ought to keep these things?" asked, in a breath, Frau Ferber and Elizabeth, who had been silent hitherto from wonder.

"Most certainly, my love," said Ferber; "your uncle left you the castle with everything which it contained."

"And little enough it was," growled the forester.

"But in comparison with our expectations a perfect mine of wealth," said Frau Ferber, as she opened a beautiful glass cabinet containing different kinds of china; "and if my uncle had actually endowed me with an estate in my young days, when I was full of hope and enthusiasm, I doubt whether it would have made as much impression upon me as does this unexpected discovery, which relieves us all of so much anxiety."

In the mean time Elizabeth had gone to the window of the first room which they had entered, and was trying to part the boughs and vines which grew so thick and strong all along this side of the building that they formed a barrier through which only a greenish twilight penetrated. "It is a pity," she said, as she found that her efforts were vain; "I should have liked some glimpse of the forest outside."

"Why, do you think," said her uncle, "that I shall allow you to live behind this green screen, which shuts out air as well as light? Rely upon me to take that matter in charge, my little Elsie."

They next descended the stairs. These, too, were in perfect preservation, and led to a large hall with a huge oaken table in the centre, surrounded by spindled-legged, straight-backed chairs. The floor was of red tiles, and the panels on walls and ceiling were covered with beautiful carving. This large apartment was provided with four windows and two doors opposite to each other; one of these led into the garden, and the other, which was opened with difficulty, into a narrow open court-yard lying between the building-and the outer wall. Here the syringas and hazel bushes were growing everywhere, making an absolute thicket, through which, however, the three men penetrated, and reached a little gate in the outside wall which communicated with the forest without.

"Now," said Ferber, delighted, "every obstacle to our living here is removed. This entrance is most valuable. We shall never have to pass through the older court-yards, which are really dangerous places, surrounded as they are by crumbling ruins."

They made one more tour through their newly found home with an eye to its future arrangement, and the mason was ordered to be upon the spot the next day that he might convert one of the back rooms into a kitchen. Then, after the oaken door leading into the large, ruinous wing had been well bolted and secured, they took their way through the gate in the wall, an undertaking difficult indeed, on account of the thick bushes which opposed their progress, but infinitely preferable to the perilous path by which they had entered.

As the returning party entered the garden of the forest lodge, Sabina came towards them, in great anxiety to learn the results of their expedition, accompanied by little Ernst, who had been entrusted to her care while his mother and sister were away. She had prepared the table with its snowy cloth and shining coffee-service upon a shady knoll under the beech trees, and now clapped her hands with delight upon hearing of all they had found.

"Ah! gracious Powers," she cried, "I hope the Herr Forester understands now that I knew what I was talking about. Yes, yes, all those things were left there and forgotten, and no wonder. As soon as the young lord was buried, old Gnadewitz packed off as quick as he could, and took every servant with him except the old house-steward Silber, and he was childish with age, and besides had enough to do to take care of all that was left in the new castle; it was crowded with furniture and plate, and he had a hard time to keep it all right; so everything was left in the old rooms, and no one knew anything about them. Ah, I've dusted and cleaned everything there often enough, and frightened indeed I was whenever I came to that old clock, for it plays such mournful music when it strikes, it used to sound like something unearthly, when I was all alone at work in the old place. Ah, how time flies, I was young then!"

Then came an hour of rest and comfortable discussion, while they drank their coffee. As Elizabeth had decided that nothing could be more charming than to awaken in their own rooms upon Whit-Sunday morning,—when the ringing of the church-bells in the surrounding villages would come softly echoing through the forest glades,—a view of the matter in which her mother sympathized, they determined to undertake all the necessary repairs and cleaning immediately, that they might occupy the rooms upon the eve of Whit-Sunday, and the forester placed all his men at their disposal.

Sabina had taken up her position upon a grassy bank at a short distance from the table, that she might be at hand if wanted; and that she might not be idle, she had pulled up a couple of handfuls of carrots from the garden and was busily scraping and trimming them. Elizabeth sat down beside her. The old woman gave a sly glance at the delicate white fingers, that contrasted so with her own brown, horny hands, as they picked some carrots up from her lap.

"Don't touch," she said, "that is no work for you,—you will make your fingers yellow."

"What matter for that?" laughed Elizabeth. "I will help you a little, and you shall tell me a story. You were born here, and must know many a tale about the old castle."

"You may be sure of that," replied the old housekeeper. "The village of Lindhof, where I was born, belonged to the Lords von Gnadewitz time out of mind, and you see in such a little place as that every one talks and thinks of the great people who rule over it. Nothing happens of any account in the castle that is not described and handed down from father to son in the village, and, long after the lords and ladies are dust, their stories are told by the village girls and boys.

"Now there was my great-grandmother, whom I remember perfectly, she knew many a thing that would make your hair stand on end; but she had a monstrous respect for every one at Gnadeck, and used to bob down my head with her trembling hands whenever a Gnadewitz drove by our cottage,—for I was but a little thing then, and did not know how to make a respectable courtesy. She knew about all the lords who had lived at the old castle for hundreds of years; yes, many a thing that had happened there, that must have outraged God and man.

"Afterwards, when I lived at the new castle, and had to sweep the long gallery where their pictures were all hanging upon the wall,—pictures of people whose very bones had mouldered away,—I often used to stand still before them and wonder to see them looking so like everybody else, when they used to make such a fuss about themselves, as if God Almighty had brought them down to the earth with his own hands. There were not many beauties among the women. I often thought, in my stupid way, that if pretty Lieschen, the most beautiful girl in the village, could only have been painted and hung in such a rich gold frame, with a silken scarf and such quantities of jewels upon her neck and in her hair, and the blackamoor with his silver waiter standing just behind her lovely face and neck, she would have looked a thousand times prettier than the lady who was so ugly, and frowned so with pride and arrogance that two great wrinkles went up to the very roots of her hair. And yet she was the very one that the family was proudest of. She had been a very wealthy countess, but hard and unfeeling as a stone.

"Among the men, there was only one whom I liked to look at. He had a frank, kind, honest face, and a pair of eyes black as sloes; but he had shown how true it is that the good always get the worst of it in this world. All the others had a fine time of it as long as they lived. Many of them had done harm enough in their time, and yet their death-beds were as calm and peaceful as if they had always been just and true; but poor Jost von Gnadewitz had a sad fate. My great-grandmother's grandmother had known him when she was a very little girl. Then they always called him the wild huntsman, because he never left the forest, but would hunt there from morning until night. In the picture he had on a green coat and a long white feather in his cap, that was most beautiful to see dangling among his coal-black curls. He was kind-hearted, and never harmed a child. While he lived all the villagers prospered, and they wished he might live forever.

"But all of a sudden he left this part of the country, and no one knew, for some time, where he had gone, until one night in a dreadful storm he came back as quietly as he had gone away. But always after that he was a changed man. The people of Lindhof prospered as before, but they saw no more of their master. He dismissed all his servants, and lived alone in his old castle with only one favourite attendant.

"And at last it began to be whispered that he was busy with magic and the black art up there, and no one dared to go near the castle even at high noon, let alone the dark night. But my old great-grandmother was a bold, saucy girl, and used sometimes to pasture her goats right under the walls of the castle court-yard. Well,—once as she was leaning against a tree there, gazing at the high walls, and lost in thoughts concerning all that might be going on behind them, suddenly an arm appeared above them white as snow, and then a face fairer than sun, moon, and stars, my grandmother said, and at last with a sudden spring a young maiden stood upon the top of the broad wall, and, stretching her arms up into the air, cried out something in a strange tongue that my grandmother could not understand, and was just about to leap down into the deep ditch full of water that then entirely surrounded the castle, when Jost appeared behind her, and, putting his arms around her, begged and implored her so that a stone would have melted at such entreaties wrung from a heart full of terror and anguish. And finally he took her up in his arms like a child, and they both disappeared from the wall. But the veil became loosened from the maiden's head and floated away across the ditch to where my grandmother was standing. It was exquisitely fine, and she carried it home in great glee to her father; but he declared it was woven by the devil, and threw it into the fire, forbidding my grandmother ever to go up the mountain near the castle again.

"Some time after,—certainly a whole year after Jost first shut himself up so closely at Gnadeck,—he came down the mountain very early one morning on horseback; but you would hardly have known him, his face was so haggard and pale, all the paler for the full suit of black that he wore. He rode very slowly, and nodded sadly to every one whom he met; he never came back to this place again; he was slain in battle, and his old servant with him—'twas at the time of the thirty years' war."

"And the beautiful girl?" asked Elizabeth.

"Ah, no one ever heard tale or tidings of her again. Jost left a large sealed packet in the town-house at L——, and said that it was his last will, and must be opened whenever news of his death should be received. But a short time after his departure, there was a terrible fire in L——; a great many houses, and even the church and the town-house, were burned to the ground with everything which they contained, and of course the packet was destroyed.

"Before Jost left, the pastor from Lindhof went to see him several times; but the reverend gentleman kept as quiet as a mouse, and, as he was already very old, he soon departed this life, and everything that he knew was buried with him. So no living being knows anything about the strange maiden, nor ever will know till the day of judgment."

"Oh, never trouble yourself to keep the matter quiet, Sabina," called the forester to her from the table, as he shook the ashes out of his pipe. "Elsie had better get used as soon as possible to the terrible conclusions to your stories. Tell her at once—for you know all about it—how the beautiful maiden one fine day flew up the chimney and away upon a broomstick."

"No, I don't believe that, sir, although I know——"

"That the whole country is swarming with such creatures, all ripe for the gallows," interrupted her master. "Yes, yes," he continued, turning to the others, "Sabina is one of the old Thuringian stock. She has sense enough, and her heart is in the right place; but when there is any question about witchcraft she loses one and forgets the other, and is nearly ready to turn any poor old woman away from the door, just because she has red eyes, without giving her a morsel of food."

"No, indeed, sir, I'm not quite so bad as that," the old woman declared with some irritation. "I give her something to eat; but I always stick my thumbs in the palms of my hands, and never answer one of her questions,—there's no harm in that!"

Every one laughed at this charm against witches and witchcraft, which the old servant told with the utmost gravity as she arose and emptied the carrot-tops from her apron, that she might prepare the afternoon meal, which was to be eaten earlier than usual, as there was much to do in the old castle before nightfall.

CHAPTER V.

As Elizabeth opened her eyes the next morning, the tall clock in the room below was striking eight, and she started up with the provoking consciousness that she had overslept herself; and it was all owing to a vivid and terrible dream. The golden atmosphere of poetry, which had yesterday hovered around Sabina's narrative, had become a gloomy cloud in the night, the shadow of which embittered and burdened the first moments of her awakening. She had been flying in deadly terror through the spacious, dreary halls of the old castle, always pursued by Jost. Thick curls were waving wildly above his pale forehead, beneath which his black eyes gleamed upon her, and she had just stretched out her arms in greater terror than she had ever experienced in her life before, to defend herself from him, when she awoke. Her heart was still beating violently, and she thought with a shudder of the wretched girl upon the castle wall, who, pursued, perhaps, as she had been, had sought relief in death, when she was again captured by her tormentor.

She sprang up and bathed her face in cold water; then she opened her window and looked out into the courtyard. There sat Sabina under a pear tree, busy with her churn. All the feathered crowd of the place stood around, looking impatiently for the crumbs that she threw to them from time to time from a bowl upon the table by her side, while she improved the occasion to rebuke the arrogant and greedy, and to console the oppressed and down-trodden.

When she saw the young girl, she nodded kindly, and called up to her to say that every one in the lodge had been busy up there in the old castle since six o'clock. When Elizabeth reproached her for letting her sleep so long, she assured her that she had done so by the express desire of her mother, who thought that her daughter had overtasked her strength in the last few weeks of excitement and exertion.

Sabina's kind, placid face, and the fresh air of the morning soothed Elizabeth's nerves at once, and brought back her thoughts to the world of reality which was just now opening so brightly before her. She took herself seriously to task that, despite her uncle's fatherly admonition, she had leaned out of the open window until midnight upon the previous night, gazing across the moonlit meadow into the silent forest. But common sense often plays a poor part when opposed to excited fancy. Where it should conduct a rigid examination and discriminate wisely, it suddenly finds itself deserted in the judgment-seat, and must retire in confusion, while the varied and motley spectacle which fancy conjures up proceeds without interruption. Thus Elizabeth's self-reproaches soon vanished before the picture which presented itself to her memory, and still threw around her all the magic of a moonlit night in the forest.

As soon as she had dressed, and drank a tumbler of fresh milk, she hastened up to the castle. The sky was overcast, but only with those light, thin clouds which foretell a fresh although not a sunny, spring day. Therefore the birds' morning concert was of longer duration than usual, and the dew-drops lay as large and full in the cups of the flowers as if their existence for the day were not threatened.

As Elizabeth entered the large gate of the castle, which stood wide open, a huge green mound, piled up by the fountain, met her eye. It was formed of thistle stalks, ferns, and bramble bushes, which had been torn from their home in the garden, and were here bidding farewell to their long, merry life. The path through the arched gateway of the second court-yard to the grating was strewn with green boughs and leaves, as though a joyous marriage train had been passing through the old ruins; and even on the sill of a high window, that showed the remains of coloured glass in the lacework of the stone rosette of its pointed arch, some boughs had been caught as they were carried past, and the trailing end of a wild vine was coiling its living green lovingly around the stone trefoil of the Holy Trinity, which betrayed unmistakably that the dark, dreary hall within had once been the chapel of the castle.

The garden, where it had yesterday been impossible to take two steps, seemed to Elizabeth entirely changed. A considerable part of it had been cleared, and showed distinct traces of having been tastefully laid out. She could easily proceed along a partially cleared path, across which timid hares and squirrels ran fleetly now and then, until she reached the green rampart which had only been seen from a distance yesterday. At each end of the long, grassy embankment, broad, worn, stone steps led up to a low breastwork, over which one could look out into the forest, and there, where the trees were somewhat thin, through a green vista down into the valley, where the forest lodge, with the white doves dotting its blue-slated roof, was nestling cosily. At the foot of the embankment, just where the broad path terminated, was a little stone basin, into which a strong stream of crystal water flowed through the mouth of a mossy little marble gnome. Two lindens arched their boughs above this gurgling brook, and threw their grateful shade upon the tender forget-me-nots, which grew here in masses in the damp earth and wreathed the little basin with their heavenly blue.

Directly opposite the embankment lay her future habitation, which, with its window-shutters thrown back and the large door on the ground-floor wide open, looked so bright and hospitable to-day that Elizabeth welcomed with joy the thought that she was looking upon her home. Her gaze wandered over the garden, and she thought upon those moments of her childhood when, her little heart full of unconquerable longing, she had lingered behind her parents during some pleasant walk, and, with her face pressed close against the iron grating, had gazed into some strange garden. There she had seen happy children playing carelessly upon the greensward; they could bend down the lovely roses that hung in such clusters, and inhale their fragrance as long as they liked. And what a pleasure it must be to creep under the flower-laden boughs and sit there in the green, just like grown-up people in an arbour! But there was nothing for her then but the look and the longing. No one had ever opened the barred door to the child with the wistful eyes, who would have been only too happy if they would have thrust a few flowers through the grating into her little hands.

While Elizabeth was standing upon the embankment, the forester appeared at one of the upper windows of the dwelling. When he saw her graceful figure leaning against the low breastwork, as, with her beautiful head half turned towards the garden, she seemed sunk in a reverie, his features were illumined by an expression of pleasure and quiet delight.

And Elsie soon found him out, and nodding to him gaily, bounded down the steps towards the house. Little Ernst ran to her in the hall, and she took him up in her arms.

The assistance which the little boy had afforded had been, according to his own enthusiastic account, invaluable indeed. He had carried bricks for the mason who had been mending the hearth, had helped his mother to shake out the beds, and declared with pride that the lords and ladies upon the woollen hangings looked far handsomer since he had brushed off their dusty faces. He threw his arms around his sister's neck as she carried him up-stairs, assuring her all the way that he liked it a thousand times better here than in B——.

The forester received Elizabeth in the antechamber above. He scarcely gave her time to say good morning to her parents, but conducted her instantly into the gobelin-hung apartment. Ah, what a transformation! The green lattice-work that had obscured the window had vanished. Without, beyond the outer wall, the forest retreated like side-scenes on either side, opening a full view of a distant valley that was to Elizabeth a perfect paradise.

"There is Lindhof," said the forester, pointing to a large building in the Italian style, which lay tolerably near to the foot of the mountain upon which Gnadeck stood. "I have brought you something that will show you every tree upon the mountains over there, and every blade of grass in the meadows of the valley," he continued, as he held an excellent spy-glass before her eyes.

And then the grand, solemn mountain domes seemed to approach, their granite peaks, sometimes crowned by a solitary fir, breaking through the forest here and there. Behind these nearest summits towered countless ranges in the blue misty light, and from a distant, dim valley which separated two giant mountains, arose two slender, shadowy gothic towers. A little river, a highway bordered by poplars, and several gay villages enlivened the background of the valley. In front lay Castle Lindhof, surrounded by a park laid out in princely style. Beneath the windows of the castle extended a closely shaven lawn, beset with small, quaintly-shaped beds glowing with all the colours of the rainbow. Thence Elizabeth's eyes soon wandered, and rested delightedly upon the mysterious gloom of an avenue of magnificent lindens, their heavy foliage interlacing above their brown trunks, while here and there drooping boughs swept the ground beneath with their broad leaves. They bordered a little crystal lake, which just now looked melancholy enough amid all its flowery surroundings, for its depths mirrored a cloudy sky. Now and then a swan stretched its white neck curiously among the low-hanging linden boughs, and sent a shower of feathery spray from its wings to sprinkle their old trunks.

Hitherto Elizabeth had allowed the glass to range restlessly hither and thither, but now she attempted to hold it steadily, for she had made a discovery which excited her interest most powerfully.

Under the last trees of the avenue stood a couch. A young lady lay upon it, her charming head thrown back so that a part of her chestnut curls fell down across the pillow. Beneath the hem of her long white muslin dress, which enveloped her form to the throat, peeped out two tiny feet encased in gold-embroidered satin slippers. She held in her delicate almost transparent hands some auriculas, which she was thoughtlessly twisting and waving to and fro. Her lips alone showed any colouring; the rest of her face was lily-pale; one would almost have doubted its being informed with life had not the blue eyes gleamed so wondrously. But these eyes with their depth of expression were riveted upon the countenance of a man who, sitting opposite, appeared to be reading aloud to her. Elizabeth could not see his face, for his back was turned toward her. He seemed young, tall, and well made, and had a profusion of light-brown hair.

"Is that lovely lady over there the Baroness Lessen?" asked Elizabeth, eagerly.

The forester took the spy-glass. "No," said he, "that is Fräulein von Walde, the sister of the proprietor of Lindhof. You call her charming, and certainly her head is lovely, but she is a cripple; she walks upon crutches."

At this moment Frau Ferber joined them. She too looked through the glass, and thought the countenance of the young lady most beautiful. She was particularly struck with the expression of gentle kindness which, as she said, "transfigured the features."

"Yes," said the forester, "she is kind and benevolent. When I first came here the whole country around was full of her praises. But matters are changed indeed, since the Baroness Lessen has had the control of affairs over there. No more alms are distributed among the poor, unless they are earned by hypocrisy. Woe to the wretch who asks any assistance there! He will be turned away without a penny, if he ventures to hint that he would rather listen to the pastor in the village church on Sundays than go to the castle chapel, where the chaplain of the baroness every week calls down fire and brimstone, and every imaginable pain of hell, upon the heads of the ungodly."

"Certainly such violent measures are poorly fitted to win souls to heaven and inspire people with Christian love," said Frau Ferber.

"They destroy all good, and foster hypocrisy, I tell you!" cried the forester, angrily. "Do they not set an example of it themselves? They are always reading in the Bible of Christian humility, yet every day they grow haughtier and more supercilious. Why, they would actually persuade us that their high-born bodies are moulded of a different clay from those of their poor brothers in Christ. It stands written, 'When thou doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth;' but no hen ever makes more to-do over her newly-laid egg than these people over their charities. There are perpetual collections, fairs, and lotteries for the poor, and the whole neighbourhood is black-mailed, but when it comes to taking the money from, where it is plentiest, their own purses,—oh, that's carrying the joke too far, as the saying goes. I know people who have been for twenty years collecting subscriptions from others to found a poor-house. These very people have a yearly income of six thousand thalers, but of course it never occurs to them to add one penny from their own store in aid of their charitable project. They must purchase a reputation for benevolence and Christian self-sacrifice more cheaply than that. Zounds! how it enrages me to see people wearing their piety so pinned upon their sleeves! Over there in the castle a bell is set ringing just so many times a day, that every one in the country around may say, when they hear it, 'They are having prayers at the castle.' The closet, where God has commanded us to shut to the door and kneel in prayer, is altogether too small to suit their taste. And it is not only this trumpet-blowing that outrages me. I hold it to be actually wicked to make such a mere everyday form of the worship of the Holiest. Do you suppose that the maid-servant, with a hot smoothing-iron in her hand, or the cook, who is just putting her roast to the fire, can rejoice in the sound of that bell?"

"It is most certainly a dubious kind of piety," said Frau Ferber, smiling.

"Or even the gracious ladies themselves, who are busy with the last novel or a piquante bit of court scandal—for an interest in all such things is quite consistent with the loftiest piety—do you suppose they are able to divert their thoughts in one instant from worldly affairs and turn them all heavenwards? But these people run in and out of the kingdom of heaven without any thought or preparation, and congratulate themselves upon the honour that they are doing to the Creator."

"And does Herr von Walde sympathize with these reforms of the baroness?" asked Frau Ferber.

"From everything that I can gather from the villagers, I should judge not; but how does that mend the matter? He is probably at this moment prying into the pyramids that he may throw light upon antiquity; how should he know that his cousin here is zealously doing her best to blow out the advancing light of the present? Besides, I dare say he has a crack in his own brain. The prince of L——, who knows him well, wished some years ago to make a match between him and a young person of quality at court, but, as I hear, my gentleman refused the alliance because the fair one's pedigree was not sufficiently long."

"Why, perhaps then he may install as mistress of Lindhof some fair daughter of a fellah, whose ancestors lie among the mummies at Memphis," said Elizabeth, laughing.

"I don't believe he will marry at all," rejoined the forester. "He is no longer young, is too fond of a wandering life, and has never shown any love for women's society. I'll wager my little finger that that fellow there with the book in his hand thinks just as I do, and already in his inmost soul regards Lindhof and all the other charming estates in Saxony, and God only knows where else, as his own."

"Has he any claims to them?" asked Frau Ferber.

"Most certainly. He is the son of the Baroness Lessen, whose family is the only one in the world related to the brother and sister von Walde. The baroness was first married to a certain Herr von Hollfeld; that young man is the fruit of that marriage, and by the death of his father he came into possession of Odenberg, a large estate on the other side of L——. The fair widow was fully conscious that her freedom must be made available to assist her up at least one step in the ladder of human happiness and perfection, and naturally this could only be attained by a marriage with high rank, wherefore Frau von Hollfeld one day became Baroness Lessen. 'Tis true the baron's name had been made somewhat notorious by several acts on his part which people of common, low-born ideas might call dishonourable; but what matter for that? Was he not a lord chamberlain, and did not the keys of his office unlock many a door for him where St. Peter's would have availed nothing, in spite of the power given to them? However, the baron died after two years of marriage, leaving his widow a little daughter and an enormous amount of debts. I have no doubt she is glad enough to queen it at Lindhof, for I hear that she has no part or parcel in her son's property."

Here a maid from the lodge interrupted them with bucket and broom, giving unmistakable signs that she was about to begin the duties of her office in this apartment. The spy-glass was hastily closed, and while the forester went into the garden to renew his labours there in clearing away the luxuriant green from the lower window-sills, Frau Ferber and Elizabeth busied themselves with dust-cloths and brushes in restoring the furniture of the room to something of its original appearance.

CHAPTER VI.

Whitsuntide was over. The brazen bells had retired into private life, and looked black and silent through the loopholes in the bell-towers, that seemed like the coffins of the melodious life which had so lately streamed forth from them during the holidays. But the bright flower-bells in the forest, hanging loosely on their stalks, could not forget the festival. They had joined in bravely when the air had quivered with the brazen clang, and still rang gently with every breeze that swept through the underbrush. What did they care that the wood-cutter, his holiday clothes and face all laid aside, tramped past them in his heavy boots, whistling some rude melody! The forest heeded not, but kept up the same mysterious murmur amid its branches like a thousand-voiced whisper of prayer, and the little birds sang as before their matin and vesper hymns in God's praise.

Up in old Castle Gnadeck, as in the forest, the festal spirit of the holidays still reigned, although Ferber had already entered upon the duties of his office, often making unavoidable visits to L——, while Frau Ferber and Elizabeth had, through Sabina, received several large orders from a ready-made linen establishment in L——, and were besides busy every day for some hours in the garden which even in this first year gave promise of abundant fruit and flowers. Notwithstanding this constant industry, there was a holiday air pervading the whole place, arising from the consciousness in the minds of each one of the family that there had come a happy turn in their affairs; they were continually comparing their present with their former situation, and the new and unaccustomed life of the forest had an almost intoxicating effect upon their spirits.

Her parents had given Elizabeth the gobelin room, because there was the finest prospect from its windows, and because the girl when she had first entered it had declared that she liked it best of all. The gloomy door which led into the huge old wing Had been walled up and gave no sign that such a dreary waste lay beyond it. The further end of the room was filled by one of the renovated canopied bedsteads, and by the window stood the antique writing-table, with its quaint inkstand and writing utensils of porcelain, and two vases filled with lovely flowers; while just outside the window, embowered in the topmost branches of a syringa bush, was the canary's cage; its occupant vying with the forest songsters in its shrill trilling with all the envy of some spoiled bravura singer.

While they were arranging the room, and Frau Ferber was every moment bringing in some new piece of furniture to add to it a greater air of comfort and luxury, her husband went to the longest wall, and, stretching his arms across it, banished to the anteroom the lounge that had just been placed there.

"Stay,—this space I appropriate," he said with a smile. Then he brought a large bracket of dark wood and nailed it upon the wall, which was wainscoted neatly to the ceiling on this side. "Here," he continued, as he placed upon the bracket a bust of Beethoven, "this mightiest mortal shall be enthroned alone."

"But that looks so blank and bare," said Frau Ferber.

"Only wait until to-morrow or the day after, and you will, I am sure, admit that my arrangements are not to be despised, and that Elizabeth will have both pleasure and profit from them."

And on the next day, which had been Whitsun-eve, he went to town with the forester. They returned toward evening, but did not enter through the gate in the garden wall. The great gate was flung wide open, and four strong men bore in a large and shining object through the ruins. Elizabeth was standing near the kitchen window, engaged, for the first time in her new home, in preparing the evening meal, when the men entered the garden with their burden.

She cried out, for it was a piano—a large, square piano, which was immediately borne up stairs and placed in the gobelin room under Beethoven's bust. Elizabeth laughed and wept at the same moment, as she rapturously embraced her father, who had expended his little capital, the proceeds of the sale of their furniture in B——, that he might provide her again with what had been the delight of her life. And then she opened the instrument and a flood of rich melody filled the rooms where the silence of death had reigned for so many years.

The forester had come with her father to enjoy Elizabeth's surprise and delight. He now leaned silently against the wall, as the wondrous sounds flowed forth from beneath the girl's touch. For the first time he heard the true speech of the glowing life that animated the delicate young frame. How thoughtful and inspired was the air of the finely-shaped head which crowned her graceful form, so suggestive of earnest maidenhood! Hitherto only jests and merry repartee had been exchanged between uncle and niece. He often called her his butterfly, because of the airy grace of her motions and her quickness of mind, which never left her at a loss for a reply to his merry attacks; but his favourite name for her was "Gold Elsie," for he maintained that her hair was such perfect gold that he could see it shining and shimmering in the darkest parts of the forest as she approached, and that it heralded her coming to him as the jewel in the giant's shield had once announced his approach to Childe Roland.

When Elizabeth had finished she spread her arms above the instrument as if to embrace it, and, leaning her head upon it, smiled the happiest smile; but her uncle approached her softly, gave her a silent kiss upon the forehead, and departed without a word.

From this time he came up every evening to the old castle. As soon as the last rays of the setting sun had faded from the tree-tops, Elizabeth sat down at the piano. The little family took their places in the large low window-seat, and lost themselves in the fairy world, which was opened to them by the great master whose image looked down from the wall upon the inspired young performer. And then Ferber would think of how Elizabeth had portrayed the free life in the forest when the letter from her uncle had first arrived in B——. 'Tis true no elves or gnomes appeared, but the spirits which the mightiest of the masters of music had imprisoned in sound floated forth from their prison-house on a flood of melody, breathing into the solemn silence around a mysterious life—a life of whose joys and sorrows every sympathetic human soul is conscious, although to genius alone is granted power to embody and reveal them.

One afternoon they were all sitting together at their coffee. The forester had brought his pipe and newspaper, and begged of Elizabeth a cup of the refreshing beverage. He was just about to read aloud an interesting article in his paper, when the bell at the garden gate sounded. To the astonishment of every one, when little Ernst ran to open it, a servant in livery entered and handed Elizabeth a note. It was from the Baroness Lessen. She began by saying much that was flattering with regard to the young girl's masterly performance upon the piano, to which she had listened for the two or three previous evenings while walking in the forest, and concluded by preferring a request that Elizabeth would consent, of course for a stipulated consideration, to come to Castle Lindhof every week and play duets with Fräulein von Walde.

The style of the letter was extremely courteous; nevertheless the forester, after a second perusal of it, threw it angrily upon the table, and said, looking steadily at Elizabeth,—

"I hope you will not consent?"

"And why not, my dear Carl?" asked Ferber in her stead.

"Because Elizabeth is, and always will be, far too good for those people down there!" cried the forester, with some irritation. "But if you choose to see what you have carefully planted, choked up and ruined by poisonous weeds and mildew—why, do it."

"It is certainly true," replied Ferber quietly, "that my child has known until now none other than a parent's care. We have endeavoured most conscientiously, as was our duty, to cherish every germ of good, to foster every plant of tender growth. But we have had no idea of producing a mere hot house flower, and alas for us and for her, if all that we have unweariedly tended and nourished for eighteen years is so loosely planted in the soil that it can be torn thence by the first blast of life! I have educated my daughter to live in the world; she must battle her way among its storms, as we all must. If I should be taken from her to-day, she must herself guide the helm which I have hitherto held for her. If the people in the castle below are not fit associates for her, matters will soon arrange themselves. Either both parties will feel their unsuitability to each other and all intercourse will cease, or everything that offends Elizabeth's principles will pass by her like idle wind, leaving no impression. Why, you yourself never avoid a danger, but rather prove your strength by meeting it bravely."

"But, zounds! I am a man, and can take care of myself!"

"And how do you know that Elizabeth hereafter will possess any support except what she finds in herself, or have any sharer in the responsibility of her actions?"

The forester cast a keen glance at his niece, whose earnest eyes were riveted upon her father's face. He who was to her the embodiment of wisdom and tenderness was echoing her own ideas, and the expression of her beautiful face showed what she felt.

"Father," she said, "you shall see that you have not been mistaken—that I am not weak. I never could endure the trite image of the ivy and the oak, and shall most certainly not illustrate it in my own person. Be comforted, uncle dear, and let me go down to the castle," she said, smiling archly at the forester, whose forehead showed a deep frown of decided irritation. "If the people there are heartless, don't suppose for one moment that they will make a cannibal of me, and that I shall eat my own heart up. If they try to crush me with supercilious arrogance, my own inner standard of action shall be so high that I can look down in pity upon the harmless arrows of their scorn; and if they are hypocrites, I shall turn with all the more delight to gaze into the sunny face of truth, and be more deeply convinced of the ugliness of their black masks."

"Fairly spoken, oh incomparable Elsie, and incontestably true,—if only these same people would kindly hand you their masks to examine. But you will awake some day to find that what you have believed to be gold is only the merest tinsel."

"No indeed, dear uncle; I will not foolishly allow myself to be imposed upon. Remember, we have had many trials since my childhood; they have not been borne without teaching me some good lessons. Certainly we must all trust somewhat in our own strength, and I shall not despair for a long time, even if upon my first experience of the world I plunge into an abyss of Egyptian darkness, full of frightful monsters. But look, uncle dear, to what your zeal for my soul's welfare has brought you,—your coffee looks as though it could be skated upon, and your meerschaum is at its last gasp."

The forester laughed, although the laugh was not from his heart. And while Elizabeth refilled his cup for him and handed him a lighted match, he said to her: "You must not suppose that my ammunition is exhausted because I say to you, 'Well, well, go and try it.' I look forward to the satisfaction of seeing the courageous chicken come flying back again some day, only too thankful to creep under the sheltering wing of home."

"Aha!" laughed Frau Ferber, "you have no idea of the stern determination in that little head. But let us decide. I advise Elizabeth to pay her respects to the ladies to-morrow."

The next afternoon at about five o'clock Elizabeth descended the mountain. A broad, well-kept path led through the forest, which melted imperceptibly into the park. No gateway separated its carefully-tended grounds, with their clumps of trees and feathery grass, from the wild woods beyond.

Elizabeth had put on a fresh light muslin dress, and a small, white, round straw hat. Her father walked with her as far as the first meadow, and then she went bravely on alone. No human being crossed her path during her long walk; it even seemed as though the trees rustled more softly here in the leafy avenues and arcades than in the forest beyond, and as if the birds modulated their notes more gently. She started at the noise of the crunching gravel beneath her tread as she approached the castle, and wondered to find how timid the intense quiet had made her.

At last she reached the principal entrance, and caught sight of a human face. It was a servant, who was busy in an imposing vestibule, but who moved as noiselessly as possible. Upon her request that he would announce her to the baroness, he slipped up the broad staircase fronting the hall door, at the foot of which stood two lofty statues, their white limbs half concealed by the orange trees placed at their bases. He soon returned, and assuring her that she was expected, led the way quickly up the stairs, scarcely touching the steps with the tips of his toes.

Elizabeth followed him with a beating heart. It was not the grandeur around her that oppressed her, it was the sensation of standing all alone in this new untried sphere. The servant conducted her through a long corridor, past the open doors of several apartments, which, furnished with extraordinary splendour, were heaped with such a profusion of elegant trifles that a simple child, unused to such luxury, would have supposed herself in a fancy-shop.

Her guide at last carefully opened a folding-door, and the young girl entered.

Near the windows, opposite Elizabeth, upon a couch lay a lady in apparently great suffering. Her head was resting upon a white pillow, and warm coverings were spread over her entire figure, which, in spite of its wrappings, betrayed decided embonpoint. In her hand was a vinaigrette.

She raised her head slightly, so that Elizabeth could see her face distinctly; it was round and pale, and at first sight by no means unprepossessing. Upon a closer view, the large blue eyes, that glittered beneath light eyelashes and elevated eyebrows as light, looked cold as ice, an expression in nowise softened by the supercilious lines about her mouth and nostrils, and by a broad, rather projecting chin.

"Oh, Fräulein, it is very kind of you to come!" cried the baroness in a weak voice, which nevertheless sounded harsh and cold, as she pointed to a lounge near her, and motioned to Elizabeth, who courtesied politely, to sit down. "I have begged my cousin," she continued, "to arrange matters with you in my room, as I am really too ill to take you to hers."

This reception was certainly courteous, although there was a considerable amount of condescension in the lady's tone and manner.

Elizabeth sat down, and was just about to reply to the question how she liked Thuringia, when the door was suddenly flung open, and a little girl of about eight years of age ran in, holding in her arms a pretty little dog, struggling and whining piteously.

"Ali is so naughty, mamma, he will not stay with me!" cried the child, breathlessly, as she threw the dog upon the carpet.

"You have probably been teasing the little thing again, my child," said her mother. "But I cannot have you here, Bella; you make so much noise, and I have a headache. Go away to your room."

"Oh, it's so stupid there! Miss Mertens has forbidden me to play with Ali, and gives me those tiresome old fables to learn; I cannot bear them."

"Well, then, stay here; but be perfectly quiet."

The child passed close to Elizabeth with a stare and an examination of her dress from top to toe, and mounted upon an embroidered footstool before the mirror in order the easier to reach a vase of fresh flowers. In a moment the tastefully arranged bouquet was thrown into the wildest disorder by the little fingers, which busied themselves with sticking single flowers into the delicately embroidered eyelet-holes of the muslin curtain. During this operation large drops of the water, in which the flowers had been placed, dropped from the stems upon Elizabeth's dress, and she was obliged to move her chair, as there seemed no likelihood that any stop would be put to the proceeding, either by the little Vandal herself or by her mother's prohibition.

Elizabeth had only had time to move, and to reply to the reiterated question of the baroness, that she already felt very happy and, quite at home in Thuringia, when the lady hastily arose from her reclining posture, and, with an amiable smile upon her lips, nodded towards a large portière, which was drawn noiselessly aside and on the threshold of the door appeared the two young people whom Elizabeth had lately seen through the spy-glass; but how strangely ill-assorted they now seemed to be, as she saw them thus standing together. Herr von Hollfeld, a slender figure of great height, was obliged to bend very much on one side to afford any support to the little hand that rested upon his arm. The sylph-like little figure, which had lain upon the couch in the park, was no taller than a child's. The exquisitely lovely head was sunk between the shoulders, and the crutch in her left hand showed how helpless was her crippled condition.

"Forgive me, dearest Helene," cried the baroness, as the pair entered, "for troubling you to come to me; but, as you see, I am again the poor wretched creature upon whom you are so ready to bestow your angelic pity and kindness. Fräulein Ferber," here she motioned towards Elizabeth, as if presenting her, and the young girl rose, blushing, "has had the kindness to come, in compliance with my note of yesterday."

"And, indeed, I am very grateful to you fordoing so!" said the little lady, turning towards Elizabeth with a smile of great sweetness, and holding out her hand. Her glance measured the blushing girl before her with an expression of surprise, and then rested upon the heavy golden braids that appeared below the hat. "Oh, yes," she said, "I have already seen your lovely golden hair; yesterday as I was walking in the forest you were leaning over a wall up there at the old castle."

Elizabeth blushed yet more deeply.

"But because you were there," continued the little lady, "I lost the pleasure for which I had clambered up the height, the pleasure of hearing you play, which I had enjoyed on the previous evening. So young and child-like, and yet with such a thorough appreciation of classic music! it seems impossible! You will make me very happy if you will play often with me."

Something like a shade of displeasure flitted across the features of the baroness, and a close observer might have noticed a scornful contraction of her lips, but it was lost upon Elizabeth, whose attention was entirely absorbed by interest in the unfortunate little lady whose delicate silvery voice seemed to come fresh from the depths of her heart.

In the mean time, Herr von Hollfeld pushed a chair for Fräulein von Walde close to the lounge, and left the room without uttering a word. But as he went out by the door directly opposite to Elizabeth, she could not help noticing that he directed a last long look at her before slowly closing it after him. It disturbed her, for his expression was of so strange a kind that she hurriedly glanced over her dress to see if anything there could have struck him as odd or unsuitable.

For the last few moments Bella had been sitting upon the carpet, playing with the dog. It would have been a charming picture, if the whinings and uneasy movements of the little animal had not betrayed that the child was teasing it. At each loud cry from the dog, Fräulein von Walde started nervously, and the baroness said, mechanically, "Don't tease him so, Bella!" At last, however, when the animal uttered a most piteous howl, the mother raised her forefinger threateningly, and said, "I must call Miss Mertens."

"Oh," replied the child contemptuously, "I don't care for her! She doesn't dare to punish me, for you told her she mustn't."

At this moment, the portière was gently drawn aside, and a pale, faded gentlewoman appeared. She courtesied to the ladies, and said, timidly: "The chaplain is waiting for Bella."

"But I won't have a lesson to-day!" the little girl cried, taking a ball of worsted from the table and throwing it at the speaker.

"Yes, my child, you must," said the baroness. "Go with Miss Mertens, and be a good little girl, Bella."

Bella, as though the matter affected her no more than it did Ali, who had retreated behind the sofa, threw herself into an arm-chair and drew her feet up under her. The governess was about to approach her, but at an angry look from the baroness she retired to the door again.

This disgraceful scene would probably have lasted much longer if the baroness had not brought up a corps de reserve to her assistance in the shape of a box of bonbons. The child, after she had crammed her mouth and pockets full, left her seat, and, pushing aside the hand which her governess held out to her, ran out of the room.

Elizabeth sat petrified with astonishment. The delicate features of Fräulein von Walde also showed evident disapproval; but she said nothing.

The baroness sank back among her pillows. "These governesses will be my death," she sighed. "If Miss Mertens could only learn how to treat, judiciously, a child of Bella's sensitive, nervous temperament! She never takes into account social position, temperament, and physical constitution. She would model all after the same pattern—the daughter of a grocer or a peer; a finely-strung, sensitive nature, or a robust, rude, day-labourer physique—'tis all the same thing to her. Miss Mertens is a disagreeable, pedantic schoolmistress; her English, too, is detestable. Heaven only knows in what mean little English county she learned her native tongue!"

"But really, dear Amalie," said Fräulein von Walde, "I do not find her English impure," and her voice sounded exquisitely kind and soothing.

"There you come with your never-failing angelic amiability; but, although I do not understand English, I can always hear, in one instant, how much more high-bred your accent is, my dear, when you are talking with her."

Elizabeth inwardly doubted the value of this estimate, and Fräulein von Walde blushed with a deprecating gesture.

But the baroness continued: "And Bella hears it, too; she will not open her lips when her governess speaks English to her, and I cannot blame her in the least; it provokes me excessively when this person blames the child for obstinacy."

Under the influence of her irritation the voice of the baroness, which had at first been very weak and suffering, had grown perceptibly stronger. She suddenly seemed to become aware of this herself, and closed her eyes with an expression of great weariness. "Oh heavens!" she sighed, "my unfortunate nerves are too much for me. I grow excited instead of being kept quiet; these vexations are poison both to my mind and body."

"I would advise you, Amalie, when you are as nervous and weak as you are to-day, to leave Bella without a fear to Miss Mertens' care. I am convinced that nothing can be better for her. While I fully understand your touching anxiety on the child's account, I can confidently assure you that Miss Mertens is far too gentle and cultivated a person to do anything that would not conduce to her welfare. You look quite worn out," she continued, sympathizingly. "We had better leave you alone; Fräulein Ferber will certainly have the kindness to accompany me to my room."

So saying she arose, and leaning over the baroness imprinted a gentle kiss upon her cheek. Then she laid her hand upon the arm of Elizabeth, whom the baroness dismissed with a gracious nod, and left the apartment.

As they slowly walked through the various corridors, she told Elizabeth that it would be a special delight to her brother, who was so far from her, if she should resume her music. He used to sit alone with her listening to her playing for hours, until a nervous malady that had attacked her had forced her to give up her beloved music for a long time. Now she felt much stronger, and her physician had also given his consent; she would be very diligent, that she might surprise her brother upon his return home. Elizabeth then took leave.

She hastened with winged speed through the park, and along the path which ascended the mountain. In the forest glade just before the open garden gate her parents were awaiting her return, and little Ernst ran lovingly to meet her. What an air of home breathed all around her here! The greeting that she received showed how she had been missed; the canary was singing merrily in his green embowered cage, the garden laughed in beauty, and in the background, under the group of lindens above the cool spring, the snowy table was spread for supper.

The Italian castle with all its splendour, its aristocratic air, and its oppressive silence, only broken by the clamour of a spoiled child, faded behind her like a dream of the night; and when she had imparted her impressions of all that she had seen and heard to her parents, she concluded with the words: "You have taught me, father dear, never to form any settled judgment of others upon a slight acquaintance with them, for such judgment runs a fair chance of being unjust, but what can I do with my unruly fancy? Whenever I think of the two ladies, I see in imagination a lovely young weeping willow, whose elastic graceful branches are the constant sport of a furious tempest."

CHAPTER VII.

From this time Elizabeth went regularly to Lindhof twice a week. The day following her first visit Baroness Lessen had arranged the hours for the lessons in a very courteous note, and had insisted upon a most generous compensation for Elizabeth's time. These lessons soon proved a source of much enjoyment. Helene von Walde, owing to the absence of all practice for many years, was very deficient in technical knowledge and capacity, and could not be compared at all with Elizabeth; but she played with much feeling, her taste was refined and cultivated, and she was entirely free from the wretched habit, common to most dilettanti, of depreciating whatever lay beyond her reach. Baroness Lessen was never present during the music lessons, and therefore the moments of rest gradually became especially delightful to Elizabeth. At such times a servant usually brought in some light refreshments. Helene leaned back in her armchair, and Elizabeth seated herself upon a cushion at her feet, and listened enchanted to the flute-like silvery voice of the unfortunate lady as she recounted many an experience of the past. The image of the absent brother here played a principal part. She was never weary of telling of his care and thoughtfulness for her, of how, although he was many years her senior, he was continually studying how to gratify and humour her childish whims and peculiarities. She related how he had purchased Lindhof only because, upon a visit which she had formerly made in Thuringia, she had experienced great benefits from the pure Thuringian air; everything showed how dearly he loved her.

One afternoon, when they had been practising unusually long, a servant entering announced a visitor.

"Stay and drink tea with me this afternoon," said Fräulein von Walde to Elizabeth. "My physician is here from L——, and several ladies from the neighbourhood have just arrived; I will send some one up to the castle that your mother may not be anxious about you. My tête-à-tête with the doctor will not last long, and I shall soon be with you again."

And so saying she left the room. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed before the door opened and Fräulein von Walde entered, leaning upon the arm of a gentleman whom she presented to Elizabeth as Doctor Fels, from L——. He was tall, with an intellectual countenance, and as soon as he heard Elizabeth's name he entered into a lively conversation with her, comically assuring her that his own surprise and horror, as well as that of the entire respectable population of L——, had really known no bounds when it was reported that old Castle Gnadeck had received within its crumbling walls inhabitants of flesh and blood.

Suddenly there was a rustling in the antechamber, and upon the threshold of the door appeared two figures of rather singular exterior. Their great resemblance of feature plainly revealed their relationship as mother and daughter. Both wore dark dresses, which, contrary to the prevailing mode, fell limp and close around them, large scarfs of black woollen stuff, and brown, round straw hats, tied, in the case of the mother, with black ribbon, while the daughter had a lilac bow beneath her chin.

Helene von Walde received the ladies courteously, presenting them as Frau and Fräulein Lehr, and Elizabeth afterwards learned that, residing in L——, they spent their summers in lodgings in the village of Lindhof.

Immediately after their entrance the Baroness Lessen appeared, leaning upon her son's arm, and accompanied by a gentleman who was addressed by those present as Herr Möhring, the chaplain.

The baroness was dressed in dark silk, but with the greatest elegance, and made a most imposing appearance. She paused for an instant upon the threshold of the door, and seemed to be disagreeably surprised at Elizabeth's presence. She measured her with a haughty look of inquiry, and replied to her courtesy by a scarcely perceptible inclination of the head.

Helene noticed the look, and approaching her said in a soothing whisper, "I kept my little favourite with me to-day—I had already detained her so long."

This excuse did not escape Elizabeth's ear. It offended her, and she would willingly have flown away through the window near which she was standing, had not pride induced her to stay and brave the arrogance of the baroness. The great lady seemed entirely pacified by the explanation of what had occurred without her consent. She put her arm around Helene, stroked her curls tenderly, and said a hundred caressing things to her. Then she requested those present to follow her to the adjoining room, where tea was prepared. She did the honours of the tea-table, and discovered a talent, by no means to be despised, for leading and carrying on the conversation. With admirable tact, she contrived always to make Helene the centre of attention without in the least wounding the self-love of the others.

Elizabeth sat silent between the doctor and Fräulein Lehr. The conversation possessed little interest for her, inasmuch as it related to people and circumstances entirely strange to her. Frau von Lehr had much to say, and seemed perfectly instructed in every matter, private or public, that had taken place during the last few weeks among the people living around Lindhof. She spoke in a peculiarly mournful, suppressed tone of voice, and at the conclusion of the rehearsal of each exciting piece of news cast down her eyes and inclined her head with great apparent humility and resignation, as though she were a lamb suffering for the sins of the world. Now and then she drew forth from a huge reticule which she carried a small bottle of rose-water, with which she moistened her eyes, as they seemed weak with perpetual casting towards heaven.

What a contrast between her and Helene's madonna face, as it leaned against the dark plush of the lounge, reminding Elizabeth more than ever of the water-lily lying dreamily with its snow-white leaves upon the dark surface of the lake! To-day there was a strange glow upon the delicate features. It was not that all traces of suffering had vanished, but there was a peaceful light of content in her eyes, and a happy smile wreathed the pale lips as often as she took up from her lap the bouquet of rosebuds which Herr von Hollfeld had presented to her when he entered. He sat beside her, and sometimes joined in the conversation. As soon as he opened his lips the ladies were silent, listening with the greatest attention, although his talk was anything but fluent, and, as Elizabeth soon discovered, betrayed not the slightest originality of mind.

He was a very handsome man, of about four and twenty. There was great repose in the finely-cut features, which at first seemed to indicate manliness and strength of character; but any such impression which their regularity might have produced was effaced by a searching glance into his eyes. Those eyes, although they were large and faultless in shape, had no depth whatever, and never lighted up with that meteoric flash which so often reveals the man of intellect, even when he does not speak. Its want can be atoned for by that mild glow which speaks of deep sensibility, and which, although it does not instantly impress us, gradually attracts and enchains us. But there was nothing of this to be discovered in Herr von Hollfeld's fine blue orbs.

This sentence, however, would have been echoed by but few, for it was the present fashion, especially at the court of L——, to regard Herr von Hollfeld as a prodigy, whose silence gave warrant of unfathomable depths of intellect and sensibility,—in which opinion the ladies in and around Lindhof most cordially joined, as was illustrated by the conduct of Frau von Lehr's very stout daughter, who leaned forward, directly across the modestly shrinking Elizabeth, and listened, as if to the enunciation of a new gospel, whenever Herr von Hollfeld opened his lips. And she, too, appeared quite willing to allow her light to shine.

"Were you not charmed with the lovely sermons with which Herr Möhring edified us during the holidays?" she asked, turning to Elizabeth.

"I regret not having heard them," she answered.

"Then you did not attend divine service?"

"Oh, yes! I went with my parents to the village church at Lindhof."

"Indeed!" said the Baroness Lessen, turning for the first time toward Elizabeth, and smiling sarcastically. "And were you greatly edified at the village church at Lindhof?"

"Most truly was I, gracious lady," Elizabeth quietly replied, looking calmly into the contemptuous eyes that were turned upon her. "I was deeply affected by the simple, earnest words of the preacher. His discourse was not delivered in the church, but under the trees outside. When the service was about to begin it was evident that the little church could not contain the crowd of worshippers, and an altar was constructed under God's free sky. Such altars might often be erected."

"Unfortunately, they often are," said Herr Möhring, who until then had spoken little, contenting himself with confirming all Frau von Lehr's remarks by an amiable smile or an assenting nod. Now, however, his broad, shiny face grew purple, and, turning to the baroness, he continued, contemptuously: "Yes, most gracious lady, it is only too true; the old idols are being replaced in the sacred groves, and we shall have druids sacrificing to them beneath the oaken shades."

"Really, that never occurred to me. With the aid of my wildest imagination I should never have dreamed at the time that I was assisting at a heathen sacrifice," rejoined Elizabeth. She smiled, but continued with serious warmth: "It seemed to me, on that glorious spring morning, as the tones of the organ streamed forth from the open doors and windows of the church, and that reverend old man spoke in such devout tones, as it did when I entered the temple of God for the first time in my life."

"You seem to have an excellent memory, Fräulein," Frau von Lehr here remarked: "How old were you at that time, if I may ask?"

"Eleven years old."

"Eleven years old! Oh, heavens! how can such a thing be possible?" cried the lady in holy horror. "How possible with Christian parents! Why, my children were familiar with the house of God from their earliest years, as you can testify, my dear doctor."

"Yes indeed, madame," he replied with great gravity. "I remember that you ascribed the attack of croup, by which you lost your little son at two years of age, to a couple of hours in the cold church."

Elizabeth looked up quite terrified at her neighbour. The doctor had joined in the conversation hitherto only by throwing in a sarcastic word here and there very drily, which amused Elizabeth greatly, inasmuch as he was always met by a reproving glance from the baroness. When the young girl began to speak she had not noticed him any more than had the others, whose entire attention had been occupied with the wretched heathen child, so that no one had observed how he was bursting with inward laughter at the daring replies of the young stranger, and their effect upon those present. His answer appeared thoughtless and cruel to Elizabeth; but he must have known his companions well, for Frau von Lehr was not at all offended, but replied with great unction: "Yes, the Lord took the pious little angel to himself; he was too good for this world;" then, turning to Elizabeth, she said: "And so you were shut out from the Lord's kingdom for the first eleven years of your life?"

"Only from His temple, gracious lady. As a little child I was instructed in the history of Christianity, and with my first thoughts were blended ideas of God's wisdom and love. I cannot remember the time when I did not hear of them from my father; but it is a firm principle of his never to allow very young children to go to church; he says they are entirely incapable of appreciating the importance and meaning of what they see and hear there; the sermon, which must be entirely beyond their comprehension, wearies them, and they conceive a dislike to the place. My little brother Ernst is seven years old, and has never yet been to church."

"Oh, happy father, who has the courage to frame and execute such plans for his children's culture!" exclaimed Doctor Fels.

"Well, what hinders you from letting your children grow up without care, like mushrooms?" asked the baroness with malice.

"That I can readily tell you in a very few words, most gracious lady. I have six children, and cannot afford to have masters for them at home. My profession prevents me from teaching them myself, and, therefore, I am obliged to send them to the public school and subject them to its laws, which require them to attend church regularly. Just as little can I carry out my views with regard to another subject,—the putting of the Bible into the hands of young children. The Sacred Book, which contains the holy principles that should regulate all our thoughts and actions, and, as such, should be regarded with veneration by the young,—does not belong in their hands at a time when childhood, with rare exceptions, seeks amusement instead of instruction, and is always curious to investigate whatever is forbidden and mysterious. And, therefore, I know,—and any observant teacher will admit,—that children who devote themselves constantly to the perusal of the Bible, for which they are commended by thoughtless parents, do not always search for the text of the last sermon,—but read much else beside,—often meeting with words and expressions which a careful mother would guard them from hearing at home, but whose significance is often made only too clear by their intercourse with other children not so carefully educated, left to the charge of ignorant and vulgar servants. And suppose, even, that they seek explanation of certain words and phrases from their mothers only; an intelligent mother will always know, 'tis true, how to reply to their queries, but she must, most certainly, forbid them the use of many expressions which they find in the Bible,—let us recall to mind the Song of Solomon,—and so the first seeds of doubt and unbelief are sown in the childish mind, which is wanting in the strength that only moral culture and riper understanding can give."

Here the Baroness Lessen arose with a gesture of impatience. Upon her full cheeks, usually so pale, two round, crimson spots had appeared, a sign to all who knew her, of great irritation. Fräulein von Walde, who had been a passive listener to the conversation, also arose, took her cousin's arm, and, leading her to the window, asked whether she would not like to hear a little music from Elizabeth and herself.

This propitiatory proposal was received with a gracious inclination of the head,—the more especially as the baroness did not feel herself quite equal to the doctor in a war of words; and, as everyone must have seen her indignation, she was quite willing to have it supposed that the beautiful, soothing music was the cause of her refraining from annihilating the impious defamer of her holy zeal, for she was perpetually presenting Bibles to poor children.

She took her seat in a windowed recess, and looked out upon the landscape, upon which the first shadows of approaching evening were falling. Her look was cold and cruel,—an expression often seen in a certain kind of light-blue eye, shaded by white eyelashes. The corners of her mouth were drawn down, a sign of great displeasure, which did not vanish even when Schubert's Erlking, arranged for four hands, was performed in a masterly manner by Helene and Elizabeth. The waves of melody broke against that breast unfelt, as the waves of the ocean upon a rocky shore.

When the last chord died away, the ladies arose from the instrument, and the doctor, who had stood immovably, listening, hastened towards them. His eyes sparkled as he thanked them for a treat which, as he assured them, was richer than any he had enjoyed for years. Here Fräulein von Lehr's face grew scarlet, and her mother cast a malicious glance at the unlucky enthusiast. Had not her daughter the preceding winter played several times in public in L——, for the benefit of some charitable association, and had he not attended every concert? However, the doctor did not appear to notice the storms that he was calling down upon his head. He discussed Schubert's compositions in a manner that manifested refined perception and a thorough knowledge of his subject.

Suddenly there was a harsh clash of chords upon the piano; it seemed as though fingers of bone were belabouring the keys. They looked round with a start. The chaplain was seated at the instrument, with head thrown back and inflated nostrils. He raised his hands for a second attack, and began a beautiful choral, which his horrible playing converted into torture for sensitive ears. Still it might have been endured, when, to Elizabeth's horror, he began to sing in a nasal, snuffling tone;—that was too much. The doctor seized his hat, and bowed to Helene and the baroness, the latter only vouchsafing him a slight wave of the hand in token of dismissal, without turning her face from the window.

An incomparable expression of humour hovered upon the doctor's features. He pressed Elizabeth's hand cordially as he departed, and took leave of the rest with a courteous bow.

As soon as the door closed behind him, the baroness arose with excitement and approached Helene, who was sitting in a corner of the sofa.

"It is intolerable!" she cried, and her sharp voice sounded muffled, as if suppressed anger were choking her, while her searching gaze rested full upon the little lady, who looked up to her almost timidly. "How can you, Helene, here in your own house, hear our rank, our dignity as women,—yes, even our holy of holies, which we are bound so faithfully to defend,—assailed so grossly without one word of reply?"

"But, dear Amalie, I cannot see."

"You will not see, child, in your inexhaustible patience and long-suffering, that this doctor insults me whenever he can. Well, I must submit to that, for this is not my house, and besides, as a Christian, I would rather endure wrong than resort to retaliation. But this submission must cease when the sacred claims of the Lord are assailed. Here we should strive and struggle, and not grow weary. Is it not actually blasphemous for this man to seize his hat, and, sans façon, take his departure from the room while our hearts are being stirred and elevated by the lofty thoughts which the truest form of music, the choral, can alone express?"

She had spoken louder and louder, until she did not perceive that her voice was entirely destroying the effect of a touching phrase, just delivered by the unwearied chaplain, whose efforts had not been intermitted for an instant.

"Ah, you must not blame the doctor for that," said Fräulein von Walde. "His time is precious; most likely he has a patient to see in L——; he was about to leave just before we began to play."

"While that heathenish Erlking was going on, the worthy man entirely forgot his patients," the baroness interrupted contemptuously. "Well, I must submit. Unfortunately, in our degenerate days, the scoffers of our faith have gained the upper hand."

"But, for heaven's sake, Amalie, what do you want me to do? You know only too well that Fels is indispensable to me. He is the only physician who knows how to relieve me when I am in great suffering," cried Helene, and her eyes filled with tears, while her cheeks were suffused with a blush of irritation.

"I thought, Fräulein Helene,"—began Frau von Lehr, who had hitherto sat in her corner silently, and on the watch, like a spider in its web,—"I thought that the welfare of our souls should be our first consideration; care for our poor bodies should, in my estimation, rank second in our view. There are many other skilful physicians in L——, with as great a reputation for learning as Dr. Fels enjoys. Believe me, my dear, it often gives great pain to our Christian friends in L—— to know that a scoffer, an infidel, is admitted to your confidence as your friend and adviser."

"Even if I consented to sacrifice myself so far," replied Helene, "as to employ another physician, I dare not take such a step without first obtaining my brother's consent; and I know that I should meet with determined opposition there, for Rudolph is warmly attached to the doctor, and puts entire confidence in him."

"Yes, more's the pity!" cried the baroness. "I have never been able to comprehend that weakness in Rudolph's character. Doctor Fels imposes upon him utterly with his seeming frankness, which might better be called insolence. Well, I wash my hands of the affair, only for the future I must decline any visits from the doctor, and entreat you, my dear Helene, to excuse me when he is with you."

Fräulein von Walde made no reply. She arose and looked sadly around the room for an instant, as if missing something. It seemed to Elizabeth that her eyes sought Herr von Hollfeld, who had left the room unperceived a short time before.

The baroness took up her lace shawl, and Frau von Lehr and her daughter prepared for departure. Both paid several compliments to the chaplain, who had finished his performance, and was standing at the piano rubbing his hands with embarrassment; and then all took leave of Helene, who replied to their good-nights in a tone of great exhaustion.

As Elizabeth descended the stairs she saw Herr von Hollfeld standing in a retired, dimly-lighted corridor. During his mother's outbreak of anger he had sat quietly turning over the leaves of a book, never joining in the conversation by word or look. His conduct had disgusted Elizabeth, who had hoped that he would have stood by Helene and silenced his mother by a few serious words. She was still more displeased when she noticed that he was steadily regarding herself while he was apparently occupied with his book. He might easily have seen her displeasure in her face, but he continued to stare most insultingly. She felt herself at last blush deeply beneath his gaze, and she was the more provoked at feeling this, as the same thing had occurred against her will several times before. It was remarkable that she never went home from Castle Lindhof without chancing to meet Herr von Hollfeld either in the hall, upon the stairs, or stepping suddenly from behind a tree in the park. Why these meetings at last became painfully embarrassing to her she could not have explained to herself. She thought no more about it, and usually forgot him entirely before she reached her home.