"Mother, the lady wishes to see our rooms."

The woman curtsied. "Pray be seated," she said, with a motion towards the old sofa.

Johanna's eyes followed her gesture, and with an exclamation of surprise she approached. She was not mistaken; upon the wall above the sofa hung a photograph of her foster-brother.

"Do you know Dr. Werner?" the woman asked, and her sad eyes brightened.

"He is my foster-brother," Johanna replied.

"He was my son's best friend," the other said, and her eyes filled with tears. "My poor Paul died in his arms. That is his picture beside Dr.

Werner's."

Johanna recollected now that Ludwig had come to Donninghausen on New Year's eve, two years before, from the death-bed of a friend in Hanover.

She soon informed the little circle of this, and that she could tell them of Ludwig.

"What a pity that our father and the little ones are not here!" the blonde sisters said almost together. "But church must soon be over. How glad they will be!"

Johanna at last referred to the business that had brought her here, saying that she wished for lodgings for herself and a little sister, who, after a severe illness, was unable to travel, and that she should need the rooms until the return of the child's mother and step-father from Russia.

The mother and daughters all conducted her across the bright landing to a room with an adjoining bedroom. Here also the walls were only whitewashed. The ceiling was low, and the furniture was old and simple, but everything shone with neatness. The windows looked out upon a little garden, whence the fragrance of flowers floated aloft, and a quiet reigned around that was not all Sabbath stillness.

"You must see the garden!" one of the sisters exclaimed. "There is nothing like it in all Hanover."

"But, Jetta, after your description the Fraulein will be disappointed,"

said the mother. And, turning to Johanna, she explained: "Our house is part of the remains of an ancient monastery; in the lower story there are still the old vaulted store-rooms. Our neighbour, the florist, has rented them for coal-cellars, and what Jetta calls our garden is only a little terrace which my father-in-law, who was very fond of flowers, laid out upon a continuation of these vaults. He used to grow the rarest tulips and carnations here. We cannot, indeed, do that."

They stepped out into it. The terrace was closed in by a latticed fence covered with clematis. In front there was an extended view of fields and meadows, hedge-rows, a little stream bordered by willows, small stretches of woodland, and a couple of villages. On the right it was shaded by the aged lindens in the neighbour's garden, which must also have dated from the palmy days of the monastery. In the centre there was a large bed, which had probably once contained the father-in-law's floral treasures, but which was now devoted to salad and herbs, surrounded, however, by a thick border of lavender in full bloom. On the right there was a perfect thicket of syringas, lilacs, jessamine, and hawthorn, in which the finches were singing merrily.

"It is very pleasant here," said Johanna, after a hasty glance around.

"If you will take me and my little sister----"

"We shall be so glad!" cried the girls.

Johanna rea.s.sured the mother, who feared lest the Fraulein would find it too quiet here, and their manner of life too plain, by telling her that she was searching for a quiet place in which she might work undisturbed; and the daughters promised to do everything to make their home pleasant for Dr. Werner's sister.

In the midst of these a.s.surances there was heard a talking, laughing, and barking on the stairs, as if from part of the 'Wild Huntsman's'

retinue. But it was only the three 'little ones,' st.u.r.dy, blue-eyed, fair-haired little girls, who had just come from church, and who now rushed out upon the terrace with their four-footed pets. After them came their father, a tall, spare man, with thin gray hair, and a pair of shy, blue, child-like eyes.

"Come, father, come!" cried Jetta, evidently the spokeswoman of the family. "This is Dr. Werner's foster-sister, and she is going to rent our rooms, and to come with her little sister to live with us."

"Werner's foster-sister!" he repeated, offering Johanna his hand. "You are indeed welcome. I was afraid that your brother had forgotten us, but his sending you to us proves I was wrong."

Johanna hastened to correct his mistake. The idea of being received under false pretences could not be entertained by her for a moment.

After she had informed the old man with regard to Ludwig's travels, she told him as much of her own affairs as was fitting, rather doubtful in her mind as to whether he would welcome beneath his roof the child of an actor.

But the master of the house declared that he should esteem himself happy in receiving her as a lodger. He had seen the great artist in one of his most brilliant parts, and his face brightened yet at the remembrance.

The pecuniary arrangements were soon completed, and when Johanna took her leave of the family, all looked forward with pleasure to meeting again.

On the same Sunday morning, when the Freiherr opened the post-bag, the first thing he took out was a newspaper in an envelope. "What have we here?" he said, as he unfolded it. "I don't know what this means! Aha!

here is something marked----"

He began to read, and his face darkened, then flushed purple; the veins in his forehead swelled, and he held the paper nearer to his eyes, as if he could not trust them. "h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation!" he suddenly shouted, read on, then hurled the paper from him with another imprecation, sprang up, and walked heavily to the window.

His sister followed him. "Dear Johann!" she said, in a trembling tone of entreaty. He did not hear her. For a moment she stood beside him uncertain, then went back to the table, picked up the paper, found the marked place, and read Dr. Stein's notice about Johanna.

What was to be done? The announcement of her death would not have been so bad. Mechanically she fumbled among the letters lying on the table, when suddenly her eyes fell upon an envelope addressed in Lobel Wolf's hand, and picking it up, she again went up to her brother. "Dear Johann," she said, laying her hand upon his arm, "it cannot be our Johanna! Here is a letter from Lobel Wolf that may explain----"

"Give it to me!" the Freiherr cried. And, tearing open the envelope, he hurriedly read the letter. His hand trembled, his breath came short and fast. "Artist-blood!" he said, at last, with a laugh that wrung his sister's heart. "She rejects my proposal with regard to the jewels, because she possesses a talent by which she hopes to make an independence!"

He folded his arms upon his breast, and began to pace the room to and fro. Aunt Thekla sank trembling into an arm-chair; the tears rolled down her withered cheek as she looked up sadly at her brother. As he had once suffered with his daughter he was now suffering with his grand-daughter.

His head was sunk upon his breast; the white eyebrows were gathered in a frown; his breath came almost like a groan.

For a long while he paced thus. Suddenly he stopped in the middle of the room and stood erect with an effort, then resumed his walk, muttering in the deep, low tones which his people so dreaded, "I have been wrong, and am suffering for it! I ought to have known that between Donninghausen and the daughter of a player there yawns a gulf which nothing can bridge over. But I am grown old, Thekla; old and weak! I loved the girl more than any other of my children's children. I thought I recognised in her my own thoughts, my own feelings, my own ideas of right and honour. All wrong, Thekla! The illusions of a weak old man, or a farce played by a girl. They say her father was a great man among the players." And again he laughed loud and scornfully.

"Johann, dear Johann, you are wrong!" sobbed Aunt Thekla.

The Freiherr paused before her. "You are right," he said, more gently.

"She did not deceive me intentionally, she was not false; only given over to the curse that cleaves to her blood. It is not her fault; it is and must always be mine for bringing her here, and for all but wasting upon her the name of our race. Thank heaven!" he went on, after a pause, laying his hand heavily upon his sister's shoulder,--"thank heaven, it did not come to that. And I make a vow now to myself and to all of you that from this hour there shall be no more of such weakness. I will not waste another thought upon this unfortunate creature. All the strength and force yet left me shall be devoted to Donninghausen, and my care shall be for the genuine children of my house who do honour to me and to my name."

Thekla pressed her brother's hand to her lips, and wept afresh.

"Be quiet!" he said, with rough cordiality. "'Close up the ranks' must be the order to obey in life as on the battle-field. The fewer the survivors, the more they must cling together. I think we Donninghausens can stand our ground."

Thekla made no reply. The thought of Otto and Magelone closed her lips.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE TERRACE-COTTAGE.

Batti made no opposition to Johanna's plans further than was demanded by courtesy; in fact, he was glad not to have opposite him at every meal her dark, serious eyes, in which he read now melancholy, and now, as it seemed to him, reproach. And Helena soon contrived to persuade him to consent to leave Lisbeth with her sister when they left Hanover, representing to him that the child would be more likely to overcome the repugnance she now felt to the circus if she were to hear and see nothing of it for a time.

So the very next morning Johanna removed to her terrace-cottage. Helena and Lisbeth accompanied her. Helena was dissatisfied; she thought the house too small, the rooms too plain. Lisbeth, on the contrary, was enraptured. The little rooms, the odd terrace, the six sisters, who were so merry and kind, took her childish heart by storm. "Rika, f.a.n.n.y, Jetta, Minny, Annie, Sanna," she repeated to herself; and when her mother called her to go, she begged to be allowed to stay with Johanna.

"You know, mamma dear, you are never, never at home." And Helena, who could not bear to forego an entertainment of any kind, yielded to the little one's persuasions.

And for like reasons the child was soon left entirely with her sister.

Helena's time was much occupied, as she was to leave town so shortly, and then it would be well for the little girl to become accustomed to her new home. "A mother must learn to forget herself," she said, and she was content with having Lisbeth with her for a couple of hours in the hotel every day, and with now and then calling for her to drive.

But when the final separation took place she made no attempt at self-control; never heeding the physician's warning that the excitable child must not be agitated in any way. Johanna had taken Lisbeth to the hotel, and Helena, sobbing convulsively, clasped her in her arms, declaring that she would soon, soon return, never to be separated from her darling more. Her husband led her away, and his own eyes were moist.

Johanna could not refuse to take the hand he offered her in farewell.

They went. Johanna let the child look out of the hotel window while 'mamma and Uncle Carlo' got into the vehicle which was to take them to the railway station. They looked up and nodded; the horses started.

Helena leaned out of the carriage-window, her fair curls fanning her pretty face, her blue eyes filled with tears. She gracefully threw a kiss to the child at the window. Johanna was never to forget the picture.