etrothed!" 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 embarrassment 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 principal 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 Fuerstenstein 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