s continued to knit mechanically like a piece of clock-work
wound up.

Albert sprung up quickly, making a noise as he rose, but at the very
same moment the baroness rose also, and approached him with an air, so
free, noble, and graceful, that he saw no more of the little, plump,
almost comical figure, but thought that the baroness was transformed to
another creature. "Pardon the housewife who is employed from break of
day, lieutenant-colonel," said she, in a sweet voice, as she grasped
Albert's hand, "if in the evening she is unable to resist the effects
of fatigue, even though she hears the greatest events recorded in the
finest manner. This you must also pardon in the active sportsman. You
must certainly be anxious to be alone with your friend and to open your
heart to him, and under such circumstances every witness is an
incumberance. It will certainly be agreeable to you to take, alone
with your friend, the supper which I have served in his apartment."

No proposal could have been more opportune to Albert. He immediately
in the most courteous language, wished a good night to his kind
hostess, whom he now heartily forgave for the bunch of keys, and the
grief about frightened Hans Gucklick, as well as for the
stocking-knitting and the nodding.

"Dear Ernest!" cried the baroness, as the friends wished to bid good
night to the baron; but as the latter, instead of answering only cried
out very plainly: "Huss! Huss! Tyrus! Waldmann! Allons!" and let
his head hang on the other side, they tried no more to arouse him from
his pleasant dreams.

"Now," said Albert, finding himself alone with Victor for the first
time, "tell me how you have fared. But, however, first let us eat a
bit, for I am very hungry, and it appears there is something more here
than the bread and butter."

The lieutenant-colonel was right, for he found a table elegantly set
out with the choicest cold delicacies, the chief ornament of which was
a Bayonne ham, and a pasty of red partridges. Paul Talkebarth, when
Albert expressed his satisfaction, said, waggishly smiling, that if he
had not been present, and had not given Mariane a hint of what it was
that the lieutenant-colonel liked, as suppenfink (_super-fine_)--but
that, nevertheless, he could not forget his aunt Lizzy, who had burned
the rice-pudding on his wedding-day, and that he had now been a widower
for thirty years, and one could not tell, since marriages were made in
heaven, and t