"Ah, I have succeeded in surprising you, grandpapa, haven't I? I came up the back road, but the wheels stuck so in the mud that I had to get out and walk part of the way. I came in through the garden and by the back door--well, Babette, what is it?"

"Fraulein, the carrier is still waiting with the satchel," Babette had just discovered that a stranger was on the premises. "Shall I give him money for a drink and let him go?"

The young man, thus designated as the carrier, still stood, satchel in hand, awaiting Marietta's pleasure. Dr. Volkmar turned at once, and recognizing who it was, cried in a frightened tone:

"Good heavens--Herr von Eschenhagen!"

"Do you know the gentleman?" asked Marietta, without any especial interest or surprise, for her grandfather, being the only physician in the region, of course knew every one.

"To be sure I know him. Babette, take the valise at once. I beg your pardon, sir. I did not know that you were acquainted with my granddaughter."

"Why, we never saw each other before to-day," explained Marietta. "But, grandpapa, will you not introduce me to this gentleman?"

"Certainly, my child. Herr Willibald von Eschenhagen of Burgsdorf--"

"Toni's betrothed!" interrupted Marietta delighted. "O, how comical that we should meet each other for the first time in the mud. If I had known who it was I would not have treated you so cavalierly, Herr von Eschenhagen. I let you walk behind me as though you were a veritable porter. But why didn't you speak?"

Willibald didn't speak now, but looked stupidly at the little hand which was extended to him. He felt he must do or say something, and as it was an impossibility for him to speak, he grasped the little hand in his great, brawny palm and pressed and shook it vigorously.

"Oh!" cried Marietta as she drew back hastily. "You have a terrible grip, Herr von Eschenhagen. I believe you have broken my finger."

Willibald, glowing from embarra.s.sment and mortification, was about to stammer an apology, when the doctor came to his rescue by inviting him to come in. This invitation he accepted without speaking, and followed his host into the house. Marietta took the princ.i.p.al part in the conversation. She gave a very amusing account of her meeting with Willibald. Now that she knew he was her dear Toni's lover, she treated him with all the familiarity and freedom of an old friend. She asked question after question about Toni and the head forester, and her tongue went on without rest or intermission.

To the young man who sat so silent and listened so eagerly, the girl's pleasant, bird-like chatter was quite bewildering. He had met the doctor on the previous day at Furstenstein and had heard some talk of a certain Marietta who was a friend of his fiancee. Who or what she was, or from whence she came, he did not know, for Toni had not been very communicative on that occasion.

"And to think of this excited child leaving you standing at the back door, while she came in to play and sing to decoy me from my study,"

said Dr. Volkmar shaking his head. "That was very impolite, Marietta, very impolite indeed."

The young girl laughed merrily, and shook her short, curly hair.

"O, Herr von Eschenhagen has not taken it amiss. But as he only heard a bar or two of your favorite song, I think the least I can do is to sing it all for him now."

And without waiting for an answer, she seated herself at the piano, and again the clear, silvery voice with its bird-like notes, broke forth on the evening air. She sang an old, simple ballad, but with such expression, such pathos and sweetness, that a bright spring sunlight seemed to enter and flood the little rooms of the old house. But no sunshine was half so bright as the joy which lit up the face of the old white-headed man, upon whose forehead lay the shadows of years and sorrow, and on whose cheeks care had pressed deep furrows. With a half-pathetic, happy smile he listened to the old familiar melody, which spoke to his heart like a voice from his own lost youth.

But he was not the only attentive listener. The master of Burgsdorf, who had fallen asleep amid the thunders of a military march, and who had felt himself entirely in accord with Tom when she declared music to be stupid, listened almost breathlessly to the enchanting strains. Such music was a revelation to him. He sat, leaning forward in his chair, as if fearful of losing a single note, with his eyes fastened upon the pretty maiden, who, singing with all her soul, moved her little head backward and forward with a graceful movement as she warbled forth her sweet song. When it was ended Willibald leaned back in his chair with a heavy sigh, and drew his hand across his eyes.

"My little singing bird," said Dr. Volkmar tenderly, as he rose and leaned over his grandchild and kissed her forehead.

"Well, grandpapa," she said teasingly, "has my voice lost anything within the last few months? But I fear it does not please Herr von Eschenhagen. He has no word of commendation for me."

She turned to Willibald with the a.s.sumed sulky look of a spoiled child.

He rose now and came over to her.

A slight flush diffused his face, and in his eyes, usually so expressionless, shone a new light.

"Oh, it was very beautiful!"

The young singer might be forgiven for having expected something more then these few embarra.s.sed words; but she felt the deep, honest admiration which they conveyed, and understood at once that her song had deeply impressed the taciturn stranger. She smiled pleasantly as she replied:

"Yes, it is a sweet song. I have scored more than one triumph singing it as an encore."

"As an encore?" repeated Will, with no idea of what she meant.

"Yes, at the theatre, which I have just left to visit grandpapa. I was such a success, grandpapa, and the director wanted me to give up all my vacation, but I had surrendered so much of it already to suit him that I declared I would have these few weeks with you."

Willibald listened to all this with increasing astonishment. Theatre, vacation, director, what did it all mean? The doctor noticed his astonishment.

"Herr von Eschenhagen does not know what you are, my child," he said quietly. "My granddaughter has been educated for an opera singer."

"How soberly you say it, grandpapa," cried Marietta, springing up and drawing her little slender figure to its full height, as she said, with an a.s.sumption of great dignity:

"For the past five months a member of the renowned and worshipful Ducal Court theatre, a person in a responsible position and worthy of all honor. Hats off, gentlemen!"

A member of the Court theatre company! Willibald drew himself together, as it were, when he heard the fatal words. The well trained son of his mother, he had a great abhorrence for all actors and actresses. He stepped unwittingly, three steps back, and stared in amazement at the young lady who had just made so startling and so frightful an announcement. She laughed out loud as he did so.

"Oh, you need not manifest so much respect for me, Herr von Eschenhagen, I will permit you to stand by the piano. Has Toni never told you that I belong to the theatre?"

"Toni? No!" stammered Willibald, greatly disconcerted. "But she is waiting for me. I must go to Furstenstein. I have stayed here much too long already."

"How extremely polite," laughed the girl, with a good-natured sneer. "It is not very polite to us, but where your bride is, there should you be also."

"Yes, and with my mother, too," said Will, who had a feeling that something dreadful was threatening him, and to whom his mother seemed a protecting angel. "I beg your pardon, but I have been here much too long already."

He stopped abruptly, remembering that he had said these words once before, but as none better offered themselves to his disturbed brain he repeated them for the third time.

Marietta was half dead from suppressed laughter. Dr. Volkmar declared, most courteously, that he would not think of detaining his guest a second longer, and begged him to give his compliments to the head forester and to Fraulein von Schonau.

The young man scarcely heard him; he reached for his hat, muttering some word of farewell, and was off without delay. He had but one thought, and that was to get away as quickly as possible. The good-natured, scarcely restrained laughter confused him greatly.

When the doctor returned, after having accompanied Willibald to the door, he found his grandchild half suffocated with laughter, while the tears were rolling down her cheeks.

"I don't believe that lover of Toni's is quite right here," she said, as she tapped her forehead with her finger. "First, he carried my satchel and was as dumb as a fish; then he thawed out a little when I sang, and now he is off on a run to Furstenstein and his mother, before I have a chance even to send Toni a message"

The doctor smiled, but it was a pained smile. He had observed this stranger more closely than Marietta, and knew only too well what caused the sudden and great anxiety to get away from the house.

"Evidently the young man is not much accustomed to ladies' society," he answered evasively; "he's under his mother's thumb apparently, but he seems to please his sweetheart, and that's the main thing."

"He's a handsome man," mused Marietta, "a very handsome man. But, grandpapa, I believe he's also a very stupid one."

Willibald in the meantime had gone, almost on a run, to the nearest street corner, and there he halted and tried to overcome his bewilderment and collect his thoughts. It was some time before he started slowly on his homeward way, and while standing dazed and stupid in the little country road, he threw more than one glance back at the doctor's house.

What would his mother say? She, who all her life had spurned the play-actor as she would a reptile. And she was right, Will saw that clearly; there was a sorcery about such people against which one needed protection.

But if this Marietta Volkmar should see fit to go to Furstenstein to visit her girlhood's friend! The young heir was horrified at the thought, and a.s.sured himself that he was horrified, but there was a new light in his eyes all the while. He saw suddenly, in his mind's eye, the reception room at Furstenstein, and the piano at which his betrothed had sat so long that day, but in her place was a dainty little figure, with a perfect glory of curly brown hair around her head; and the heavy notes of the "Janizary March" changed into the soft, pleading tones of the old-time ballad, and in the midst of it all, broke out the clear, bubbling laugh which sounded like music, too.

And all this sweetness was lost forever, both in this world and in the next, because it had been seen and heard on the stage. Frau von Eschenhagen had often expressed her views on that subject, and her son, a good, obedient son always, looked upon her as an oracle. But now he heaved a deep sigh, as he said half aloud:

"What a shame! What a lamentable shame!"