p!" rejoined Frau Ceres.

She wished to remind the Professorin that she had not called her Frau
Baroness.

"Have you ever known of the elevation of an American to the ranks of
the nobility?" she asked all at once.

The Professorin said no.

When it was now mentioned that Herr Sonnenkamp had received the name of
Baron von Lichtenburg from the castle which was rebuilding, Frau Ceres
exclaimed:--

"Ah, that's it! that's it! Now I know! This very evening, this very
moment, I will visit the castle--our castle! Then I shall sleep sound.
You shall both accompany me."

She rang forthwith, and ordered the horses to be harnessed; both the
ladies looked at each other, terror-stricken. What would come of it?
Who knows but that on the road she might suddenly become distracted and
break out into a fit of insanity?

The Professorin had sufficient presence of mind to say to Frau Ceres,
that it would be much better to make the visit to the castle the next
morning in the daytime; that if they went there in the night, it would
make a great talk in the neighborhood.

"Why so? Is there a legend about our castle?"

There was indeed such a legend, but the Professorin took care not to
tell it to her just then; she said she was ready to drive for an hour
in the mild night, out on the high road with Frau Ceres; she was in
hopes that it would quiet her.

And so the three women set out together through the darkness of that
pleasant night. The Professorin had so arranged matters that there was
not only a servant sitting beside the coachman, but also another on the
back seat. She sought to provide against all contingencies. But this
precaution was not necessary, for as soon as Frau Ceres was well seated
in the carriage, she became very quiet, nay, she began to speak of her
childhood.

She was at an early age left an orphan, the daughter of a captain on
one of Sonnenkamp's ships, who had made long and very perilous
voyages--yes, very perilous, she repeated more than once. After the
death of her parents, Herr Sonnenkamp had taken her under his sole
guardianship, and had her brought up by herself under the care of an
old female servant, and of one man servant.

"He didn't let me learn anything, not anything at all," she complained
once more; "he told me, 'It is better for you to remain as you are.' I
was not quite fifteen years old when he married me."

She wept; but then, a moment after, clapping her hands like a child,
she exclaimed