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 Fraeulein 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, Fraeulein, 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 portiere, 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. Fraeulein 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 Fraeulein 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, Fraeulein 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 portiere 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 Fraeulein 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 Fraeulein 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 Fraeulein 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; Fraeulein 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."