"How romantic! I see only his usually melancholy sheep's-eyes," said Magelone. "He stares at me, but it is a question whether he sees me.

Others, on the contrary, see too much; discover that we, that is, you and I, are flirting with each other."

"Flirting!" he interrupted her. "How can my serious devotion----"

"Oh, hush!" she cried. "You know grandpapa's plans. Johann Leopold's future betrothed must listen to nothing of that kind. You ought to court Johanna."

"It pleases my sovereign to jest," said Otto, bending over her with a smile.

"Not at all," she rejoined. "I am rather laying my commands upon my slave to turn his talent to account."

He bowed again. "The command shall be obeyed," he said. "Moreover, obedience will not be difficult. Cousin Johanna has improved wonderfully in appearance."

Magelone glanced hastily towards Johanna. "You are right: she has gained life and colour;" and she added, mentally, "Is he trying to make me jealous? He shall not succeed."

In spite of this resolution, she could not away with a slightly disagreeable sensation when, sitting beside Johann Leopold at table, she noticed the a.s.siduity with which Otto, who was Johanna's neighbour, obeyed her command, and how Johanna's eyes sparkled as she talked with her cousin. If Magelone could only have revenged herself upon him! But words, looks, and smiles were lavished in vain upon Johann Leopold, who was as monosyllabic as ever.

After dinner, in the drawing-room, Otto came to Magelone just as she was going to join Aunt Thekla and her cousins around the fire. "Not there,"

he entreated; "come to the piano; it is so long since I heard you play."

"Lost pains," was her laughing reply, as she followed him to the other end of the room. "You never will convince me that you care for music.

Did you ever really know what I was playing?"

"And if I did not, it was your fault. How can I think of aught else but your beauty, which has so bewitched me, you enchanting siren?"

"Ah, you're wrong. Sirens enchant chiefly by their song," she rejoined in a teasing tone, as she sat down at the piano and struck a few chords. "Well, Sir Enthusiast for music, what will you have?"

"Play anything; never mind what."

"Last autumn you had a pa.s.sion for Chopin,--have you forgotten? Do you no longer recognize your favourite?"

She began to play. Otto sat beside her and turned over the leaves of her music when she signed to him to do so. As often as he leaned forward she felt, with a thrill, his breath upon her neck, and sometimes he whispered, so low as to be almost inaudible, a word or two in jest in which there seemed a tone of suppressed pa.s.sion.

"Does he conduct himself thus towards Johanna?" she asked herself.

"Impossible!" her vanity made reply, and the _berceuse_ which she was playing a.s.sumed the character of a triumphal march.

The moods of the group around the fire were less harmonious. The Freiherr had retired immediately after dinner; the brothers Wildenhayn and Johann Leopold, engaged in a political discussion, had withdrawn to such a distance that they could not overhear the ladies' conversation, and Hildegard soothed her injured feelings by animadverting upon Johanna's position in the family.

It was certainly a matter of course that grandpapa should take charge of the dest.i.tute orphan, since in a certain sense she was one of the family; but was there any need to treat her as an equal? It was not only an insult to the other members of the family, it was an injury to Johanna herself. It would end in her forgetting her true position; she would learn to form expectations which could not be fulfilled hereafter, and she would lose by her arrogance the regard of the relatives upon whom, after grandpapa's death, she must needs be dependent.

"I do not think you are right there," Aunt Thekla at last interposed, having long tried in vain to oppose her gentle remonstrances to the torrent of Hildegard's speech. "My brother is sure to provide for Johanna."

"I think so too," cried Hedwig; "and I wonder, Hildegard, that you do not see it yourself. After grandpapa's giving her that valuable _parure_----"

"Yes, that _parure_!" Hildegard interposed. "With all your prejudice in the girl's favour, you must admit, dear aunt, that grandmamma's bridal _parure_ does not belong of right to her. She can do nothing with it; she never can wear it. She does not belong in society; even grandpapa could hardly succeed in introducing an actor's daughter."

Hildegard spoke these last words in a voice intentionally raised; for Johanna, who had been preparing the coffee as usual at the table before the sofa, was just pa.s.sing with the first cup for Aunt Thekla. The trembling of her hand betrayed that she had heard the malicious remark, and Hildegard looked after her exultantly as she returned to the coffee-table.

But Johann Leopold had also heard and seen, and he came to Johanna's a.s.sistance.

"Dear Magelone," he said, going to the piano,--the _berceuse_ was just ended, and Otto was expressing his admiration for the music and for the performer,--"dear Magelone, will you preside at the coffee-table to-day?

Johanna has exhausted herself with Christmas-eve preparations; she looks terribly pale and weary."

Magelone was ready on the instant to comply. "Johann Leopold jealous,--charming!" she said to herself; adding aloud, "Indeed, Johanna dear, you do look wretched. Sit there in the corner of the sofa, and I will pour out coffee for you."

"I would rather go to bed," Johanna replied. And, bidding good-night to Magelone and to Johann Leopold, whose kindness she had perfectly understood, she slipped out of the room, unperceived, she thought, by its other inmates. But in the corridor Otto joined her. "Dear Johanna,"

he said, "here is a little Christmas-token that had no place in the joyous confusion of the evening. Do not look at it until you are in your own room; but, before you go, tell me how you really are." And he gazed into her eyes with the expression that always confused her.

"It is nothing; I shall be quite well to-morrow," she stammered, mechanically, taking the little packet he handed her, and then hastening up-stairs to her apartment, while he returned to the drawing-room.

Why should her heart beat so fast? Her trembling hands could scarcely steady themselves sufficiently to light her candle; but when they had done so, and she had unwrapped Otto's Christmas-gift, she said to herself that it was the suspicion of what it was that had so moved her.

Otto had given her a small miniature of her father, taken from a well-known life-size bust. She gazed at it lost in thought. What would she not have given to be able to pour out her grat.i.tude to Otto on the instant, to speak with him of the departed one whom he had known and revered! Otto had been the first at the close of her old life to bid her welcome on the threshold of the new existence, and he was the only one in all this new existence who appreciated her love and veneration for her father.

When she met him the next morning at breakfast, he learned from her eyes and voice even more than from her words how great had been the pleasure his little gift had given her.

"I knew you would like it," he said, simply, as he conducted her to the breakfast-table; and, although no further allusion could be made then to the picture, their intercourse seemed more cordial than ever before.

Hildegard contemplated the pair with an unfriendly mien. They did not appear to notice it, and therefore the careful sister judged it best at last to signify to Otto that he was bestowing his attentions upon a most unsuitable object. The Freiherr's question as to whether the clear winter's day might not be made available for a sleigh-ride afforded her an opportunity to carry out her intention.

"Yes, dear grandpapa, a sleigh-ride would be glorious," she said; "I would merely propose that we should also pay a visit. Do you not think,"

she went on, looking around the circle at the table, "that it would be well to call at Klausenburg? When church is over the sleighs can take us there, and we can be back in time for the second breakfast."

"Will there be room for all of us?" asked Hedwig.

"Certainly," Hildegard replied. "Magelone and Johann Leopold can go in the small sleigh, and Eduard can drive, and the large sleigh will easily hold Aunt Thekla, us two, and Otto, with Karl to drive us."

"I will resign my place to Johanna," said Aunt Thekla.

Johanna was about to declare that she would rather stay at home, but Hildegard gave her no time. "Johanna at Klausenburg?" she exclaimed.

"That will never do. I, at least, have not the courage to take her there."

"Make your mind easy; that is my affair," the Freiherr interposed, and his eyes flashed at the speaker. "On New Year's day we give our customary dinner, at which I shall present my grand-daughter to the neighbourhood, and I promise you that she will meet with the reception I desire her to have. Christian, take me to my room."

The servant wheeled the old man away, and every one rose from table.

Johann Leopold began to converse with Johanna upon indifferent subjects, and involuntarily she became interested. Hedwig whispered to her discomfited sister, "Rather awkward of you, my dear." Otto asked his brother-in-law, Karl, how he could allow Hildegard to display such want of tact, and was answered by a shrug of the shoulders, whilst Aunt Thekla tried to dispel every one's embarra.s.sment by reminding them that it was time to make ready for church.

"Come, let us go together!" said Magelone, putting her arm through Johanna's and leaving the room with her. "Let me entreat you not to look so grieved," she went on. "Don't let that stupid woman vex you; you know how the others love you."

Johanna pressed Magelone's arm, and went up-stairs with her in silence.

At the door of her room she said, "You must go to church without me to-day; I cannot feel devotional after what has happened."

"Oh, Johanna, we ought not to bear malice! Be kind, and come," Magelone entreated; but with a decided "I cannot!" Johanna left her and shut herself up in her own room. She could not say to Magelone that she was far less annoyed by Hildegard's hostility than by the prospect of being thrust into a society where she was not welcome.

"If I could but get away!" she thought, as she looked from the window out over the wintry landscape. "Yes, away, away, if but for an hour!"

she said, aloud. And putting on her wraps, and accompanied by Leo, barking joyously, she hurried out into the park, and thence to the path that led up the mountain from the village into the forest.

Her heart grew lighter in the fresh winter air. She walked on quickly, upwards beneath the snow-laden boughs, upon which the sunlight played in thousands of prisms, and from which the glittering dust came powdering down upon her. At length the sight of the forester's lodge, its windows sparkling in the sunshine, warned her to return.

Since she had come thus far, she would inquire after Johann Leopold's protege. Greeted and accompanied by the barking dogs, she was going towards the door, when close by the house a girl, very poorly clad, with a shawl about her head and shoulders, came out of the thicket. The slender figure stooped low as it pa.s.sed the windows, softly lifted the latch of the house-door, and went in.