hat is a silly picture, if it is intended to be flattering," said
Tugendreich, and blushing, she stepped to the window, as she feared she
had betrayed herself.

"Do not torment yourself so much, Axel," cried the baron from the
window. "You and Hippolytus may break your necks together; he is sure
not to leap, and the master of the stable has given him up already."

"All depends on the rider," replied Axel, with powerful voice. "He
shall leap, I assure you, though he had Wallenstein and Tilly on him."
So saying, he pressed the snorting animal with great strength, and
gallopped with him to the end of the course, that he might better leap
the bar.

"A devil of a fellow this Axel," said the nobleman, laughing in
approbation.

"Heavens!" shrieked Gundchen, "there will be an accident," and
Tugendreich suppressed a sigh of anguish. With frightful side-leaps,
the black horse furiously galloped towards the bar. At this moment the
little daughter of the gardener ran across the course, and frightened
at the approaching furious steed, fell just under his fore feet.
Terror prevented the spectators from crying out, but Axel saw the child
at the critical moment when the hoof was raised over its head, and,
thinking of its peril, only reined the leaping horse suddenly in with
such force that he fell rearing on his haunches.

"He will fall back," cried the baron.

"I cannot look upon it," exclaimed Gundchen, holding her hands before
her eyes, and Tugendreich leaned against the recess as white as her
veil. In the meanwhile Axel had given the horse so violent a blow on
the head, that he was on his legs again and stood trembling; he
dismounted, lifted the crying child gently from the ground and kissing
it, carried it to its mother, who came up running and shrieking.

"Gallantly done," cried the nobleman, "but the experiment might have
cost your life."

"Better that Hippolytus and I should die than the innocent child,"
replied Axel. He mounted again, and the steed now knowing his master,
leaped readily and gracefully without a run over the high bar.

"Well done," cried the nobleman again. "Come up, you shall have a
bottle of wine for that." "I must first cool the animal," was Axel's
short reply, as he rode off in a gentle trot. "This fellow is not to
be bought for gold," muttered the baron; "but he sometimes assumes a
tone that makes it doubtful which of us two is the master and which the
groom."

Tugendreich, agitated b