ations, which are not ill meant, but which would still offend you.
This is no place for the display of your horsemanship."

"You grudge me every pleasure," replied Lenore, much aggrieved, and rode
away.

When she found herself alone, she let her pony prance and caracole under
a great pear-tree, and inwardly chafed against Anton. "How rudely he
spoke to me!" thought she. "My father is right; he is very prosaic. When
I saw him first, I was on this pony too, but then I pleased him better;
we were both children then, but his manner was more respectful than
now." The thought flashed across her mind how bright, fair, and pleasant
her life was then, and how bitter now; and while she dreamed over the
contrast, she let the pony cut caper after caper.

"Not bad, but a little more of the curb, Fraeulein Lenore," cried a
sonorous voice near her. Lenore looked round in amazement. A tall
slight figure leaned against the tree, arms crossed, and a satirical
smile playing over the fine features. The stranger advanced and took off
his hat. "Hard work for the old gentleman," said he, pointing to the
pony. "I hope you remember me."

Lenore looked at him as at an apparition, and at last, in her confusion,
slipped down from her saddle. A vision out of the past had risen
palpably before her; the cool smile, the aristocratic figure, the easy
self-possession of this man, belonged to the old days she had just been
thinking of.

"Herr von Fink!" she cried, in some embarrassment. "How delighted
Wohlfart will be to see you again!"

"I have already been contemplating him from afar," replied Fink, "and
did I not know by certain infallible tokens that he it is whom I behold
wading in uniform through the sand, I should not have believed it
possible."

"Come to him at once," cried Lenore. "Your arrival is the greatest
pleasure that he could have."

Accordingly, Fink went with her to the place where the men were engaged
in shooting at a mark. Fink stepped behind Anton, and laid his hand on
his shoulder. "Good-day, Anton," said he.

Turning round in amazement, Anton threw himself on his friend's breast.
There was a rapid interchange of hasty questions and short answers.

"Where do you come from, welcome wanderer?" cried Anton, at length.

"From over there," replied Fink, pointing to the horizon. "I have only
been a few weeks in the country. The last letter I got from you was
dated last autumn. Thanks to it, I knew pretty well where to look fo