Have you looked for a steward during your absence? One does not know how long the war will last?"

The joyous expression on the face of the young lord vanished. He had really hoped for a different greeting at this unexpected appearance of his mother.

"I have arranged everything to the best of my ability," he replied.

"The greater part of my people have been called to enlist; even the inspector has to leave in a few days, and a subst.i.tute cannot be had now. Work must therefore be reduced to the necessities, and old Martens will overlook everything."

"Martens is a goose," said Regine, in her old, terse way. "If he takes the reins, everything at Burgsdorf will go topsy-turvy. Nothing else is left for me to do but to go there myself and look after things right."

"How? You would?" cried Willibald. But his mother cut him short.

"Do you think I would let your possessions go to nothing while you are in the war? It will be securely cared for in my hands--you know that. I have held the reins there long enough and will do it again--until you return."

She still spoke in the hard, cold tones, as if she wished to exclude every warmer feeling. But now w.i.l.l.y stepped up to her, with his arm still around his bride-elect.

"You will take care of my worldly possessions, mamma," he said, reproachfully; "you will take them under your protection. But for the best and dearest thing that belongs to me you have no word nor look.

Have you really only come to tell me that you will go to Burgsdorf?"

Fran von Eschenhagen's harsh reticence could not hold fast at this question. Her lips trembled.

"I came to see my only son once more before he goes to war--perhaps to death," she said, with painful bitterness. "I had to hear from others that he had come to say farewell to his bride. He did not come to his mother, and that--that I could not bear."

"We should have come," cried the young lord; "we should have made one more attempt to win your heart before leaving. See, mother, here is my bride-elect--my Marietta. She is waiting for a friendly word from you."

Regine threw a long look upon the young couple, and again her face quivered painfully as she saw how Marietta pressed shyly, but confidently, to the man in whose protection she knew herself so secure.

Maternal jealousy stood a last, hard struggle; but finally she allowed herself to be conquered. She stretched out her hand to the young girl.

"I offended you once, Marietta," she said, in a half-stifled voice, "and did you a possible wrong that time; but for that you have taken from me my boy, who, until then, had not loved anybody but his mother, and who now loves n.o.body but you. I believe we are quits."

"Oh, w.i.l.l.y loves his mother as dearly as ever," Marietta said heartily.

"I best know how he has suffered under the separation."

"So? Well, we will have to agree with each other for his sake," said Regine, with an attempt at playfulness, which did not quite succeed.

"We shall be in a great deal of anxiety about him soon, when we know him in the battlefield; care, anxiety, will be plentiful then. What do you think, my child? I believe we could bear it easier if we worry about him together."

She opened her arms, and the next second Marietta lay sobbing upon her breast. Tears glittered also in the eyes of the mother when she bent down to kiss her future daughter-in-law; but then she said in the old, commanding tone: "Do not cry; hold up your head, Marietta, for a soldier's fiancee must be brave--remember that."

"A soldier's wife," corrected Willibald, who stood by with beaming eyes. "We have just now decided to be married before I leave."

"Well, then, Marietta really belongs to Burgsdorf," declared Regine, who was hardly surprised, and seemed to find this decision quite in order. "No arguments, child. The young Frau von Eschenhagen has nothing to do further at Waldhofen, except as she comes for a visit to her grandfather. Or are you perhaps afraid of your grim mother-in-law? But I believe you have in him"--she pointed to her son--"a sufficient protection, even if he is not at home. He would be capable of declaring war upon his own mother if she did not bear his little wife upon her hands."

"And she will do that, I know it. When my mother opens her heart, she does it perfectly."

"Yes, now you can flatter," Frau von Eschenhagen said, with a rebuking glance. "So you go with me to your future home, Marietta. You need not worry about the duties; I will attend to that. When I go away again it will be different; but I see already that w.i.l.l.y will hold you like a princess all your life long. It is right with me, just so he returns to us safe and sound."

She reached out her hands now to her son, and those two had perhaps never been in a closer or more loving embrace than to-day.

When the three entered the house, a quarter of an hour later, they met the Chief Forester, who actually started back at the sight of his sister-in-law. Regine marked his surprise with the liveliest satisfaction.

"Well, Moritz, am I still the most unreasonable, obstinate person?" she asked, offering her hand. But Schonan, who had not recovered from his jilting, kept his behind him, and muttered something incomprehensible.

Then he turned to the young couple:

"So? And now you are to be married in hot haste. I met Dr. Volkmar just now and he told me about it; so I came to offer myself as best man. But perhaps that will not be acceptable, since the Frau Mamma is at her post."

"Oh, you are just as cordially welcome, uncle," cried Willibald.

"Well, yes, I can just be used as a secondary person in a marriage,"

grumbled the Chief Forester, with a reproachful glance at Regine. "And so there will be a marriage before the war? One must say, w.i.l.l.y, you have marched with seven-league boots from your practical Burgsdorf into romance, and I should never have looked for it in you. However, my Toni is just as intent upon romance. She and Waldorf would have liked best to marry like this in steaming haste before marching orders came, but I have vetoed that, for circ.u.mstances are different with us, and I do not care to already sit at home, lonely as an owl."

He glanced again with the very grimmest expression at Frau von Eschenhagen, but she approached him now, and said, cordially: "Do not bear malice, Moritz. So far we have always made up again. Let us forget this quarrel also. You see, at least, that I can say 'Yes' for once, when the whole happiness of my boy depends upon it."

The Chief Forester hesitated a moment longer, then grasped the offered hand and pressed it cordially. "I see it," he acknowledged, "and perhaps you will now forget altogether that blamed 'No,' Regine, about another point."

CHAPTER XLVIII.

The Steward of Rodeck stood in the study of Prince Adelsberg's palace, in the Residenz. He had been called there to receive various orders and plans before the departure of his young lord.

Egon, who already wore the uniform of his regiment, had given him verbal instructions, and now dismissed the old man.

"Keep the old forest nook in good order for me as heretofore," he concluded. "It is just possible that I may go to Rodeck for a few hours before I leave, but I hardly believe so, for the order to march may come any day. How do I please you in my uniform?"

He arose and drew himself up to his full height. The slender, youthful form looked well in the uniform of a lieutenant, and Stadinger measured him with admiring eyes.

"Real splendid!" he a.s.sured the Prince. "It is a pity that Your Highness is not a soldier by profession."

"Do you think so? Well, I am one now, body and soul. Service in the field will come rather hard to me, and I will have to get used to it first. But it does not hurt when one is under strict discipline."

"No, Your Highness, it will not hurt you at all," remarked Stadinger, with his terrible truthfulness. "When Your Highness travels about for years in the Orient with a great sea serpent and a whole herd of elephants, or when you run away from the most gracious Court at Ostend because you do not want to marry at all--nothing comes of that but only----"

"But only stupidity," completed the Prince, wisely. "Stadinger, I shall severely miss one thing in the campaign--your boundless tiresomeness.

You want to give me a last curtain lecture--I see it in your face--but will spare you the trouble. Remember me rather to Lena when you get home. Is she back at Rodeck now?"

"Yes, Your Highness, _now_ she is there," said the old man, with heavy emphasis.

"Of course, because I march to France. But be content; I shall return a genuine model of sense and virtue, and then--then I shall marry, too."

"Really?" Stadinger cried in joyful surprise. "How glad the most gracious Court will be."

"That depends," teased Egon. "I may terrorize the most gracious Court with my engagement, and perhaps inflict cramps upon my most gracious Aunt Sophie with it. Don't look so stupid at this, Stadinger. You don't understand it, but I will permit you to crack your head over it during the campaign. But now go, and if we should not see each other again--keep your master in pleasant remembrance."

Stadinger's face took on the grimmest of wrinkles to hide the upwelling tears, but he could not succeed.

"How can Your Highness talk like that?" he muttered. "Shall I, an old man, remain perhaps alone in this world, and not see you any more--so handsome so young and happy! I could not live at that."

"And I have vexed you so much, old Waldgeist," said the young Prince, giving him his hand; "but you are right--we must think of victory and not death. But, when both come together, then death is easy."