can get away from it! However, we need not say any more about it. I
see your heart is set on Silberbach, and I am quite sure I shall have
the satisfaction of hearing you own I was right in trying to dissuade
you from it, when you come back again," she added, rather maliciously.

"Perhaps so. But it is not _only_ Silberbach we are going to. We shall
see lots of other places. Herr von Walden has planned it all. The first
three days we shall travel mostly on foot. I think it will be great fun.
Nora and Reggie are enchanted. Of course I would not travel on foot
alone with them; it would hardly be safe, I suppose?"

"Safe? oh yes, safe enough. The peasants are very quiet, civil
people--honest and kindly, though generally desperately poor! But you
would be _safe_ enough anywhere in Thuringia. It is not like Alsace,
where now and then one does meet with rather queer customers in the
forests. So good-bye, then, my dear, for the next two or three
weeks--and may you enjoy yourself."

"Especially at Silberbach?"

"_Even_ at Silberbach--that is to say, even if I have to own you were
right and I wrong. Yes, my dear, I am unselfish enough to hope you will
return having found Silberbach an earthly paradise."

And waving her hand in adieu, kind Fraeulein Ottilia stood at her
garden-gate watching me make my way down the dusty road.

"She is a little prejudiced, I daresay," I thought to myself.
"Prejudiced against Herr von Walden's choice, for I notice every one
here has their pet places and their special aversions. I daresay we
shall like Silberbach, and if not, we need not stay there after the
Waldens leave us. Anyway, I shall be thankful to get out of this heat
into the real country."

I was spending the summer in a part of Germany hitherto new ground to
me. We had--the "we" meaning myself and my two younger children, Nora of
twelve and Reggie of nine--settled down for the greater part of the time
in a small town on the borders of the Thuringian Forest. Small, but
not in its own estimation unimportant, for it was a "Residenz," with a
fortress of sufficiently ancient date to be well worth visiting, even
had the view from its ramparts been far less beautiful than it was. And
had the little town possessed no attractions of its own, natural or
artificial, the extreme cordiality and kindness of its most hospitable
inhabitants would have left the pleasantest impression on my mind. I was
sorry to leave my friends even for two or three