ise hurt, was
the old cock, who was highly prized, and had been for years the pride
and ornament of the whole poultry-yard.

The baroness now made her re-appearance, but it was only to arm herself
with a great bunch of keys, which she took out of a cupboard. Quickly
she hurried off, and Albert could hear both her and the housekeeper
clattering and rattling up stairs and down stairs, accompanied by the
shrill voices of the maid-servants who were called, and the pleasant
music of pestles and mortars and graters, which ascended from the
kitchen. "Good heavens!" thought Albert. "If the general had marched
in with the whole of the head-quarters, there could not have been more
noise than has been occasioned by my unlucky cup of mulled wine."

The baron, who had wandered from the breeding of poultry to hunting,
had not quite got to the end of a very complicated story of a fine deer
which he had seen, and had not shot, when the baroness entered the
room, followed by no less a person than Paul Talkebarth, who bore the
mulled wine in a handsome porcelain vessel. "Bring it all here, good
Paul," said the baroness, very kindly. Whereupon Paul replied, with an
indescribably sweet, "A fu zerpir (_a vous servir_), madame." The
manes of the victims in the yard seemed to be appeased, and all seemed
forgiven.

Now, at last, they all sat down quietly together. The baroness, after
she had handed the cup to the visiter, began to knit a monstrous
worsted stocking, and the baron took occasion to enlarge upon the
species of knitting which was designed to be worn while hunting.
During his discourse he seized the vessel, that he also might take a
cup. "Ernest!" cried the baroness to him, in an angry tone. He at
once desisted from his purpose, and slunk to the cupboard, where he
quietly refreshed himself with a glass of Schnapps. Albert availed
himself of the moment to put a stop to the baron's tedious
disquisitions, by urgently asking his friend how he was going on.
Victor was of opinion that there was plenty of time to say, in two
words, what had happened to him since their separation, and that he
could not expect to hear from Albert's lips all the mighty occurrences
of the late portentous period. The baroness assured him, with a smile,
that there was nothing prettier than tales of war and murder; while the
baron, who had rejoined the party, said that he liked amazingly to hear
of battles, when they were very bloody, as they always