to a pair of shining
brown eyes.

For an instant Anna Maria was startled, and a blush of embarrassment
spread over her face; then she held out her hand to him and bade him
welcome. Far from youthful was her manner of speaking and acting.

"Be still!" she called, in her ringing voice, to the noisy children; and
as silence immediately ensued, she added, turning to Stuermer: "They are
meeting me on important business, Herr von Stuermer, but I shall be ready
to leave at once; will you go up to Klaus for awhile?"

He kept on looking at her, still holding her right hand; he had not
heard what she said at all. With quick impatience, at length she
withdrew her hand.

"Brockelmann, bring the candle here, and take the gentleman to my
brother," she ordered; but then, as if changing her mind, she threw the
whole basketful of apples at once among the children, who scrambled for
them, screaming wildly. The baron made his way with difficulty through
the groping throng to the stairs, where Anna Maria was now standing
motionless, and with earnest gaze regarding the man who in her childhood
had so often held her in his arms, and had so many a kind word for her.

Yes, it was he again; the slender figure of medium height, the dark face
with the flashing eyes--and yet how different!

Anna Maria had to admit to herself that it was a handsome man who was
coming up the steps just then; and old? She had to smile. "One sees
quite differently with a child's eyes!" she said to herself. Was it not
as if years were blotted out, and he was coming up as in the old times,
to hold her fast by her braids and say, "Don't run so, Anna Maria"?

Silently up the stairs they went together, to the top, their steps
reechoing from the walls.

It really seemed now to Anna Maria as if her childhood had returned, the
sweet, remote childhood, with a thousand bright, innocent hours.
Involuntarily she held out to him her slender hand, and he seized it
quickly and forced the maiden to stand still. The sound of the
children's shouting came indistinctly to them up here; there was no one
beside them in the dim corridor.

Words of pleasure at seeing the friend of her childhood again trembled
on Anna Maria's lips, but when she tried to speak the man's eyes met
hers, and her mouth remained closed. Slowly, and still looking at her,
he drew the slender hand to his lips; she allowed it as if in a dream,
then hastily caught her hand away.

"What is that?" she asked, h