screams accomplish what his own lungs were
unable to effect? Turning an inflamed and frowning countenance upon
the lady who had intrusted her daughter's happiness to his hands, he
addressed her in a deep hissing voice--

"Shcream, shcream, voman! Shcream loudly, or I vill knock you!"

But the Countess was made of stern stuff. Outraged and frightened though
she was, she yet retorted huskily--

"I will not scream, Rudolph! I--I demand an explanation first!"

Executing a step of the sword-dance within a yard of her, he reiterated

"Shcream so zat zey may come back!"

She blinked, but held her ground.

"I insist upon knowing what you mean, Rudolph! I insist upon your
telling me! What are you doing here in that preposterous kilt?"

The Baron's wits brightened with the acuteness of the emergency.

"Ha!" he cried, "I vill take my kilt off--take him off before your eyes
this instant if you do not shcream!"

But she merely closed her eyes.

"If you dare! If you dare, Rudolph, I shall inform your Emperor! And I
will not look! I cannot see you!"

Whether in deference to imperial prejudices, or because a kiltless man
would be thrown away upon a lady who refused to look at him, the Baron
regretfully desisted from this project. At his wits' end, he besought
her--

"Make zem take you avay, so zat you vill be safe from my rage! I do not
trost myself mit you. I am so violent as a bull! Better zat you should
go; far better--do you not see?"

"No, Rudolph, no!" replied the adamant lady. "I have come to guard you
against your own abandoned nature, and I shall only leave this room when
you do!"

She sat down and faced him, palpitating, but immovable; and against such
obstinacy the unhappy Rudolph gave up the contest in despair.

"But I shall not talk mit her; oh, Himmel, nein!" he said to himself;
and in pursuance of this policy sat with his back turned to her while
the shadows of evening gradually filled the room. In vain did she
address him: he neither answered nor moved. Indeed, to discourage her
still further, he even summoned up a forced gaiety of demeanor, and in
a low rumble of discords sang to himself the least respectable songs he
knew.

"His mind is certainly deranged," thought the Countess. "I must not let
him out of my sight. Ah, poor Alicia!"

But in time, when the dusk was thickening so fast that her son-in-law's
broad back had already grown indistinct of outline, and no voice or
footstep had come near t