ly and excitedly to the Colonel; I believe
he imparted to him his real name.

The Colonel then ordered him, as he was so well acquainted with the
wooded heights, to attend to the further extension of the camp-fires on
their tops.

Conny carefully helped in attending to the wants of the numerous
garrison. The soldiers were treated in the best manner by the
villagers, all of whom were anxious to do their share in the good work.

The old meadow farmer was the only one who did not show himself. He,
who was always either at his door or window, and who stopped every
passer-by to have a chat which should drive dull care away, lay in his
little back room and declared that he was ill.

Carl's mother, on the contrary, did not stay in her house for a minute.
She would approach one group of soldiers after another, and ask each
man if he had a mother at home. And then she would begin to talk of her
Carl, how he was in the lancers, and how they could hunt through every
regiment and not find a better or a handsomer fellow. The two sons, who
were working as carpenters, had estranged themselves from their mother.
They lived down in the valley, and did not even visit her on Sundays.
They boasted in the taverns that they could sing French songs.

While all this bustle was going on, I was constantly searching for
Martella.

Rothfuss was of opinion that she had escaped in male attire; for,
wherever he asked after Lerz, the baker,--he had quickly lost all
traces of him, however,--he was told of a young man that had been in
his company, and who would never enter the room with him.

The Colonel had, of course, no time to sympathize with my concern about
Martella, and once when I spoke of her he said:

"We should be glad to be thus rid of her. Such a creature does not,
after all, belong in our family. You and mother have very likely been
wasting all your kindness on an unworthy person."

I did not agree with him. Yes, now at last I could understand many
things in Martella' s disposition that had heretofore been mysteries to
me. But I dared not talk about them, and the time to mourn for a single
grief had not arrived.

CHAPTER II.

On the evening of the last day of July, the Colonel returned, heated
from the effects of a long ride. A sharpshooter brought in a despatch.
He opened it, and forthwith sent his adjutant off; then he asked me to
have a good bottle of wine brought up, and to sit down be