r in the half-dark it glimmered like a ghost and seemed to move. It had
been there so long that none could remember the legend of it. It was a
grim shape.

Scattered here and there were quaint wildernesses and
pleasaunces--clipped yews and oddly trained shrubs and flowers trying to
make a diversion, but ever dominated by the huge woods, the straight
avenues, the mathematical melancholy on an immense scale.

The Frau Graefin glanced at me once or twice as my head turned this way
and that, and my eyes could not take in the strange scene quickly
enough; but she said nothing, nor did her severe face relax into any
smile.

We stopped under a huge _porte-cochere_ in which more servants were
standing about.

"Come with me," said the lady to me. "First I will take you to my rooms,
and then when you have rested a little you can do what you like."

Pleased at the prospect, I followed her; through a hall which without
any joking was baronial; through a corridor into a room, through which
she passed, observing to me:

"This is the rittersaal, one of the oldest rooms in the house."

The rittersaal--a real, hereditary Hall of Knights where a sangerkrieg
might have taken place--where Tannhauser and the others might have
contended before Elizabeth. A polished parquet--a huge hearth on which
burned a large bright wood fire, whose flames sparkled upon suits of
mail in dozens--crossed swords and lances, over which hung tattered
banners and bannerets. Shields and lances, portraits with each a pair of
spurs beneath it--the men were all knights, of that line! dark and grave
chiefly were these lords of the line of Sturm. In the center of the hall
a great trophy of arms and armor, all of which had been used, and used
to purpose; the only drapery, the banners over these lances and
portraits. The room delighted me while it made me feel small--very
small. The countess turned at a door at the other end and looked back
upon me where I stood gasping in the door-way by which we had entered.
She was one of the house; this had nothing overpowering for her, if it
did give some of the pride to her mien.

I hurried after her, apologizing for my tardiness; she waved the words
back, and led me to a smaller room, which appeared to be her private
sitting-room. Here she asked me to lay aside my things, adding that she
hoped I should spend the day at the schloss.

"If you find it not too intolerably stupid," she added. "It is a dull
place."

I said