A Noble Name; or, Dönninghausen

THE FREIHERR ASSERTS HIS AUTHORITY.

When the Freiherr heard of Johanna's departure, he had for the moment no thought save of the insult it offered to his authority. But when his first anger had passed away, he said to himself that it might mean something more than merely anxiety for her little sister. Johanna's absence from meals on the previous day, Otto's conduct, Thekla's distressed face, all taken together suggested to the Freiherr some disagreement between the lovers. He determined to question Otto himself upon the subject, and made Tannhagen the goal of his morning ride.

When half-way there, he met Otto. Aunt Thekla had sent him Johanna's note, and he was betaking himself to consult with her as to what was to be done. He was startled when at a turn of the road he perceived the tall figure of the Freiherr upon his gray gelding. He could not avoid him, so, summoning all his courage, he rode towards him.

"Do you know that Johanna has gone off?" his grandfather asked him after their first salutations, and as he spoke his gaze seemed to pierce the young man's very soul.

"So she writes me," he replied, trying in vain to appear indifferent under the Freiherr's gaze.

"Indeed! I should like to know something more about it. Ride back with me to Dönninghausen," said the Freiherr, turning his horse that way. "And now, frankly, what has occurred between you?"

"Really, sir, I do not know. I should not like to accuse——" Otto stammered.

"Have I asked you to?" the Freiherr exclaimed, impatiently. "I only wish to know whether the silly child's flight is your fault; and if it is, you will go after her and bring your foolish lady fair back again."

Otto was startled. "Indeed, sir——" he began, hesitatingly.

The Freiherr interrupted him: "Deuce take you, lad, what kind of a face is that to wear? You look as if I were sending you after the devil's grandmother instead of in pursuit of a silly child who has wellnigh lost, on your account, the atom of woman's wit that she possessed!" Then he added, more seriously, "You can tell her that this time mercy shall wait on justice, but there must be no more escapades. Of course you must have your quarrels,—lovers cannot live without them,—but you will please to keep them to yourselves. I beg you to arrange them so that I and the peace of my household shall not be implicated."

For a while they rode along silently side by side. Otto, who had been too self-occupied to have any correct idea of Johanna's state of mind, had read her note with mingled astonishment and indignation. He did not divine the pain concealed beneath the apparent calm of her words; he only saw that she could give him up. He thought her conduct hard, cold, and selfish, and he held himself absolved by the scandal she had caused from all duties towards her, and entirely justified in exculpating himself as best he might. She had expressly required that he should give their grandfather a credible explanation of their separation. He would do so.

"My dear grandfather," he said, after he had taken time for reflection, "as matters stand, I find to my regret that I must acquaint you somewhat with the cause of the present disagreement between Johanna and myself."

"Be brief, then!" the Freiherr exclaimed. "Give me the principal facts. I cannot stand childish bickerings."

"Just as you please," Otto replied, his task thus made more easy. "The first as well as the last cause is Johanna's position with regard to her step-mother's unfortunate second marriage. I require her to break at once and forever with the family of the 'equestrian artist.' She refuses to do so, and takes the first opportunity that offers to bid defiance to my wishes and requests."

"Nonsense!" the Freiherr cried, angrily. "I ought to have been told this. But she can be brought to reason. You can go for her——"

"To the house of a circus-rider! Never!" Otto declared, with an amount of resolution that the next moment surprised himself.

His grandfather's eyes flashed, but he seemed to reflect before saying, "There is something in that." And then, after another pause, he added, "We will write. I will give her the choice between Dönninghausen and these people, and you can tell her whatever seems to you just and kind. If she should then perceive her folly, let the whole stupid affair be forgotten."

They rode the rest of the way in silence. As soon as they reached Dönninghausen, the Freiherr seated himself at his writing-table, and wrote thus:

"Dear Johanna,—When my sister told me of your departure this morning, I thought you wanting in respect to leave us as you did, without asking my permission, especially as you were going to people with whom I do not wish to have the slightest degree of intercourse. By way of excuse for you, I reflected that anxiety for your little sister had probably caused you to disregard for the moment the duty you owe to me and to the rules of my household. I take a different view of the matter now that I learn that your intercourse with the family of this circus-rider has been for some time the cause of serious disagreement between Otto and yourself. At first he was reluctant to explain, but upon my urgent desire to know the truth he has told me all. You know, my child, how much I love you, and how willing I am to have you act as you see fit; but here you are wrong and must submit. The honour of our family requires that you should sever all former ties. Come back, then, as soon as you can. Otto, whom I wished to send for you, declares that he cannot take you from the house of a circus-rider, which proves to me that he is more of a Dönninghausen than I thought him. In your veins also flows the blood of our race, and I expect you to show yourself worthy of it. In spite of your mother's errors we have received you into the family as one of us, and we must now require you to have no further connection with your father's former wife and her child. Only explain to Otto that you are ready to agree to this, and all will be smooth again between you. Should your step-sister be seriously ill, I do not require you to leave her immediately; but you must do so as soon as you are relieved concerning her, and in the mean time you will carefully avoid appearing in public with any member of the circus-rider's family. Answer particularly at what time you intend to return, and accept the cordial good wishes of your affectionate grandfather,

"Johann Freiherr V. Dönninghausen."

The Freiherr gave this letter to Otto to read and to supplement, saying, "I have told the silly child what I require without circumlocution; now you can sweeten the pill of obedience to her as you please. You need not tone down what you want to say. I will not read what you write. Love-letters are interesting only to those for whom they are composed."

Would he have considered the following a love-letter?—

"Your hasty departure, dear Johanna, has unfortunately still further complicated matters. If you only would have granted me an interview, you would have forgiven me, I feel sure, and the delightful relations existing between our grandfather and yourself need not have been disturbed by any discord. But I have no idea of reproaching you. I only entreat you, as earnestly as I can, to deliver me from the false position you have forced me to take to our grandfather. One word of forgiveness and a promise to return, and all will be well. Think of the happy hours we have passed together, of the fair future that lies before us, and believe in the repentance and love of your

"Otto."

Aunt Thekla also wrote a long letter, in which some passages were almost obliterated by her tears, repeating everything that she had said on the previous day, and then the epistles were all despatched, and the Freiherr awaited with certainty the answer he desired.

A letter from Johanna to her grandfather arrived after a week's delay, with an enclosure for Aunt Thekla, but not a line for Otto.

The Freiherr's letter ran thus:

"Dear Grandfather,—Since receiving your letter I have passed the days and nights in terrible anxiety beside my little sister's bed. Her disease is nervous fever, and she was at first dangerously ill, but the fever is gradually, I trust, subsiding, and I am apparently able to take more repose. But only apparently, for since I have been somewhat easier in mind with regard to Lisbeth I have been all the more miserable with regard to myself; and if I have at last arrived at a conclusion, it is with no sense of victory, and my heart trembles as well as my hand while I write that I cannot return to Dönninghausen. If Otto means to propose to me the alternative of severing myself either from you or from my father, whose memory I cherish in those he has left behind him, we have never understood each other, never loved each other, and I give him back his troth. That a separation from him deprives me also of you, of Aunt Thekla, and of a home which I love, is the severest trial that could befall me; but I must bear it. Farewell, dear, dear grandfather! Forgive me. Do not think me ungrateful; and, in spite of appearances, believe in the unalterable love and veneration of your grand-daughter

"Johanna."

The Freiherr had long finished reading the letter, when he still sat gazing at the uncertain characters in which Johanna's usual firm, clear handwriting was hardly to be recognized. This he had not expected,—had not thought possible. But if she could thus resign Dönninghausen, without even asking if some compromise were not possible, he, too, would hold unalterably to the justice of his course.

"Read that!" he said at last, in a harsh, hoarse tone, as he handed the sheet to his sister. "Tell Otto how the matter stands. I do not want to speak of the foolish girl again."

DR. URBAN WOLF.

Johanna had thought that the worst was over when she took her departure from Dönninghausen; and, indeed, the first days and nights that she spent by her sister's bedside were occupied wholly with care and anxiety for the little one. The child lay in the delirium of fever,—raved in terror of a little black pony,—declared, screaming, that she never would dance again, never would appear in the circus; while Helena, with tears, confessed that Lisbeth's illness was the result of a fall she had while at a rehearsal.

Johanna's presence seemed to soothe the child, and, forgetting herself, she was always beside her bed; but then came the letters from the home she had left, and they recalled all the old pain and conflict.

Involuntarily she looked first for Otto's letter. Her heart had not yet forgotten to beat faster at the sight of his handwriting. But the more she read of it, the more it dulled her, and at its conclusion she laid it aside with a sensation of disgust. Did he think to lure her back thus? Did he know her so little? Had he so entirely lost all feeling of self-respect? One honest word from him, and all might have been well. Without implicating Magelone, he might have said to the Freiherr, 'I have wronged Johanna; forgive me if she forgives.' Had she hoped for this? Had she for an instant thought this solution possible? No, oh, no! Had she not written both to him and to Aunt Thekla—had she not repeated—did she not feel with every throb of her heart—that all was over between Otto and herself?

And this must be written to her grandfather. Otto had with great skill used her hint as to making her relations with these people the reason for their separation. Half the work was done; why should she delay to do the rest?

At first she found an explanation for this in her exertions as a nurse, which were unremitting. But when, at her earnest entreaty, Lisbeth was removed from the first story of the noisy hotel, where Batti had established himself, to a quiet back room in the third story, she daily grew better, and Johanna could no longer make her care the pretext for delay.

And, like all who earnestly strive after it, she, too, found 'the bitter word of liberating truth.' She pitilessly insisted to herself upon the fact that in his cool attempt at a reconciliation Otto's aim had been the preservation of friendly relations between himself and his grandfather, and that she should contribute more to his happiness by vanishing from Dönninghausen for his sake than by paving the way for her justification, and she determined to sacrifice herself. She would not—she could not love him any longer. She persuaded herself that she did not. But she might, without loss of self-respect, take upon herself the consequences of his fault. In this conviction she wrote to her grandfather.

When her letter was despatched she sank into a dull apathy. Slowly, monotonously, hour after hour, day after day passed by. Her solitude was but rarely invaded. There was little to be done at present for the child. Helena, who had talked at first about taking her share of the nursing, was soon weary, and Batti was satisfied with asking every morning what kind of a night Lisbeth had passed, and how she was at present. After receiving the usual answer, 'About the same!' and then standing for a while beside the bed looking down at the poor little figure lying motionless with half-closed eyes, he became, Helena declared, so depressed that it needed half a day's distraction to wear off the impression produced upon him by his visit to the sick-room.

"We have two patients, dear Johanna," said Helena; "and I really believe that my task as Carlo's nurse is harder than yours. Fancy the self-control it costs me to conceal from poor Carlo the anguish of my heart; to dress, to receive visits, to walk and drive, and to preside at the little suppers to which Carlo has accustomed himself as well as his friends. It is not enough to give artistic performances; the artist must maintain his position in society; and, since Batti needs my aid in this, I must not refuse it."

After talk of this kind she would kiss her 'poor little sick angel,' embrace Johanna, call her her comfort and support, and then return to her usual mode of life without a thought as to the amount of Johanna's self-denial.

Johanna had no sense of exercising any, but the confinement and the bald desolation of her surroundings added to her weight of misery. The room to which Lisbeth had been removed was low-ceiled and scarcely ten paces square, the walls were covered with a gaudy paper, the child's bed stood at one end, with an old sofa, upon which Johanna slept; against one wall stood a couple of common tables and chairs, and curtains of doubtful cleanliness were hanging before the little window, which looked out upon a narrow side-street. Helena declared that she herself could not exist four-and-twenty hours in such a 'hole;' but it never occurred to her to try to make it more comfortable. Why should she trouble herself? By foolishly breaking off her engagement Johanna had relinquished all claim to especial respect, and must be glad to find an asylum with her quasi-step-father. Unfortunately, she was quite as haughty as formerly. In vain did Helena try to discover the cause of her break with her lover. "I cannot speak of it," Johanna always repeated; and then Batti in his violent way would order his wife not to 'torment the poor thing.' "I am glad," he would say, "that it has happened as it has; now she will no longer refuse to accede to my plans. In a year she will be the queen of my circus."

Johanna never suspected this. Batti begged her kindly to accept for the present the shelter of his 'nomad-tent,' and she accepted gratefully what was cordially offered. She scarcely thought of the future,—the present, with its dull, paralyzing pain, so weighed upon her soul.

At last she was roused by a letter from Dönninghausen. Aunt Thekla had addressed the envelope. It contained a communication from her grandfather. Johanna kissed the handwriting, as she had so often kissed the withered hand that had traced it, and then read the letter, feeling as she did so the angry glance of his large eyes, and hearing the muttered thunder of his voice. He wrote,—

"So much time elapsed between my letter and your answer, that there can have been no inconsiderate haste on your part. You have reflected upon all that required reflection, and therefore there is scarcely any need of my express declaration that with the breaking of your troth to Otto every tie between yourself and myself and every member of my family, is severed forever. How you justify yourself in casting a doubt upon Otto's affection for you I cannot tell; at all events, you cannot doubt his honour. A Dönninghausen keeps his word. And Otto still feels himself bound, as he has repeatedly told me. I thought you, too, a genuine child of my house; but you are only the child of your mother, the first, the only Dönninghausen who ever deviated from the paths of duty and honour. Otto will write to you. If he succeeds in convincing and persuading you, you shall still find me inclined to forgive; but decide quickly, or this is the last word you will receive from your grandfather,

"Johann Freiherr von Dönninghausen."

This was too much! Johanna folded the letter again with trembling hands. Her mother, the patient sufferer, and she herself, who surely had never 'sought her own,' were disgraced and exiled, while Otto was looked upon as the genuine Dönninghausen who keeps his word, and Magelone as one of the blameless ones who have never strayed from the true path. Anger and pride for a moment thrust pain into the background. She would be final also, as her grandfather had been,—would prove to herself thus that she was of his blood.

She went to the open window and looked out. On the other side of the wall that bounded the little street lay a garden with fruit-trees and beds of vegetables. It was late in the afternoon, and raining. From the low clouds came the 'sound of vernal showers' filling the air and rustling low among the tree-tops; a mingled fragrance of herbs, flowers, and wet earth ascended to the window, and under the influence of the murmuring sound and the scent-laden air her tormenting reflections faded into dreamy revery. From the misty veil of the rain came trooping, at first vaguely, but in ever-increasing distinctness, forms and pictures,—the past and the present, the real and the unreal, blending together. When the light was brought, Johanna awoke as from a deep sleep.

And as she awoke she found herself back again in the midst of the old life. Each throb of her heart brought with it a dull pain, a constant grief. She saw with pitiless distinctness what she had lost. Anxiety for Lisbeth oppressed her. And yet everything was changed! The spell that had fettered her since that unhappy morning in the forest was broken, and she looked beyond herself out into the eternal beauty of life, which is independent of all individual happiness or misery.

As formerly in Dönninghausen, she now tried to fix and confirm in writing the shadowy images that rose before her; but she did not do it as then, only from a desire to liberate her soul. An impulse towards artistic creation had awakened within her,—an inheritance from her father, as she joyfully reflected,—and she began to group and arrange as a whole that which her fancy showed her phantom-like and confused.

Hour after hour she sat at the improvised desk which she had placed at the window of the sick-room. A new home was here given her in place of the beautiful, beloved one she had lost. Or was it not rather a home-coming, a recovery of the dear old haunts of memory? Banished from Dönninghausen, she fled to Lindenbad. Amid the green valleys and hills of the Thüringian forest she laid the scene of her story, and a profusion of melodious echoes from the days of her early girlhood lent it a brightness that refreshed Johanna herself.

Weeks passed; Johanna buried herself in her task with passionate intensity. The hours of daylight often did not suffice her; and even when her lamp was extinguished, darkness brought no repose. The phantoms of her fancy crowded about her and kept her awake. And many were her struggles with an imperfect, undeveloped power of expression, with an uncertain hand, and an untrained eye.

That she should suffer physically under this constant nervous strain was but natural. Several times the physician called Helena's attention to the fact that her step-daughter needed exercise in the open air. At last, when he found his warnings unheeded, he went to Batti and informed him that unless some attention were paid to Fräulein Johanna's health they should soon have two nervous-fever patients in the house.

Batti rushed into his wife's room. "Helena, why have you so neglected Johanna?" he shouted. "She will have nervous fever, and will die, all through our fault. Curse me if I ever shall forgive myself! Come, come, we must beg her to forgive us!"

With these words he rushed away again. Helena followed him, and found him in the room up-stairs, confronting the astounded girl, clasping her hand in his, while he overwhelmed her with entreaties, proposals, and self-accusations. Helena must in future do her share of nursing. Johanna must refresh herself, distract her mind; go to the circus, make acquaintances. The end of it all was that he prevailed upon her to put on her riding-habit. He would accompany her on her ride, and she should try his Miss Jane, a mare positively made for her.

At first she felt embarrassed. Batti was not only a well-known character in the sporting world,—there was no end of bows and nods from riders and gay occupants of carriages,—he was also a great favourite with the general populace. "There goes Batti! Batti!" the street-boys shouted after him; and he threw trifling coins among the rabble, and laughed at the scramble thus caused. But at last streets and promenades lay behind them, and away they galloped through the open country. Miss Jane, a delicate, high-bred creature, ran races with Batti's gray. After long days of rain, field and forest lay basking in the sunshine. The breeze was at once fresh and warm; to inhale the delicious air of which she had so long been deprived was like a revivifying draught for Johanna. She returned to the house refreshed and rejuvenated.

"By Jove, how well you look!" cried Batti, as he helped her to dismount. "Pray glance at your mirror and then deny that you are a born horsewoman."

This declaration, with a hundred variations of the same, was the theme of all Carlo Batti's conversation with Johanna, and she saw him now more frequently than formerly. Lisbeth's condition had suddenly improved: she regained her consciousness; the fever left her; she slept, and her appetite returned. She soon began to sit up for hours at a time. Batti required, with a determination that admitted of no opposition, that Johanna should indemnify herself for her long seclusion. And when Helena declared that it would be very improper for her step-daughter to appear without her at the circus, at the table-d'hôte, and at Batti's little suppers, he insisted that the maid should watch beside Lisbeth while her mother and sister were absent. Johanna must learn to love the life for which Batti destined her.

And she really enjoyed seeing the circus. The fine horses, the splendour of the costumes, Batti's performances in riding and training his animals, two beautiful blonde sisters, who were really fine performers in their way, the numerous well-disciplined troupe, the brilliant lights, the loud music, the enthusiastic applause of a large audience, all contributed to produce upon Johanna an agreeably exciting impression.

But she felt exceedingly uncomfortable in the circle in which she found herself soon afterwards, at one of Batti's suppers. Men only were invited,—partly members of the aristocracy, partly belonging to the literary class. The tone which they adopted towards Batti hovered between condescension and rude familiarity. When excited by wine he began to brag. They drew him on without his perceiving it. Helena was loaded by them with coarse flattery, which her insatiate vanity led her to accept, well pleased.

Johanna, who was taken to table by a young and rather silent lieutenant, looked on in silence. The place on her other side was empty. At last a young man appeared, who, when greeted by Batti with reproaches for his tardiness, excused himself on the plea of urgent work for his newspaper. Batti signed to him to take the vacant seat beside Johanna, and presented him to her as Dr. Edgar Stein.

"At last, Fräulein!" he said. "You have been invisible for so long, while our friend Batti has been unwearied in his wondrous tales of you, that I began to regard you as a mythical being 'veiled in lovely legend.'"

Johanna mutely inclined her head. The round, red face of the man, with its bold blue eyes and cynical smile, made a most disagreeable impression upon her.

Helena, who sat opposite, laughed in a constrained manner. "What has Batti been saying?" she asked. "We must certainly find out, Johanna."

"Why, he described the Fräulein half as one of the bold horsewomen,—Wodan's daughters,—half as a Saint Elizabeth,—cheering the sad, healing the sick, and so forth; then half as an aristocratic lady, half as an artiste. And from what I see I believe it all." Whereupon Dr. Stein bowed, and laughed as if in derision of his own words.

A WAGER AND AN ADVISER.

Johanna was much agitated. Again she felt bitterly her separation from Dönninghausen, and she was also suddenly assailed by anxiety with regard to her future. The young man was right. When she should be no longer of use as Lisbeth's nurse she could not remain with her step-mother; and what then?

At times, when while sitting at her writing-table, she had felt some consciousness of power,—she had hoped to be able to maintain herself by literary labour. At other times she doubted. Now, when the question seemed to her more grave than ever before, she seemed to hear her father's words of discouragement, 'as devoid of talent as her mother.' But why, then, was she so irresistibly impelled to give life to the creatures of her fancy? and how had she been able in all her misery to forget herself in so doing, if she were not called to avail herself of the talent which she possessed?

She stood at the window, with throbbing pulses, and gazed out into the twilight. Over in the garden a thrush was singing its evening song in the top of an old pear-tree. Ah, that song! Its ecstasy would always recall to the girl the most wretched hour of her existence. 'Called?' Had she not also thought herself called to be a partaker in the bliss of love? How true the words of Holy Writ, 'Many are called, but few are chosen!'

The evening and a great part of the night were passed by Johanna in a wild turmoil of thought. She began the new day with a weary head and a heavy heart. All the more cheerful was Batti during the morning ride; he shouted and laughed louder than ever. Suddenly he broke off, and, guiding his horse close to her side, he said, "I am tiring you with my nonsense, but you must excuse me to-day. I have just had a letter which puts me quite beside myself. If the devil does not put in his oar, we shall go to St. Petersburg this autumn."

Johanna was startled. How would Lisbeth bear the long journey and the severity of the Russian winter?

"Helena knows nothing about it yet. I shall not tell her until everything is ship-shape," Batti continued; "she makes such a row. But I tell you immediately, because we have no time to lose. Better go to work at once. St. Petersburg is the best place in the world for your débût."

"My débût!" Johanna exclaimed, in surprise.

"Pray let us have no fol-de-rol nonsense!" Batti quickly rejoined. "No need for us to play hide-and-seek with each other! I need you, you need me; let us confess this much at once. Your manners, rather haughty,—coolly distinguished, I might say,—will be a fine nut for the St. Petersburg gentlemen to crack. You will look like a queen beside my two laughing, coquettish blondes. Besides, you have talent, enthusiasm, energy, and look better on horseback than anywhere else. You have no family connection. Even without appearing as an equestrienne you have contrived to be exiled and repudiated. Nothing could be more admirably arranged. So be sensible; do not hesitate any longer. Mount the horse that an honest hand saddles and bridles for you, and then halloo! huzza! for the brilliant future I promise you. Why the deuce should you hesitate? You'll find no better teacher than myself, and no better chance than in my circus. I should like to know what objections you can make?"

"None," Johanna replied. "I know that your intentions are the kindest, and I thank you cordially, but it cannot be!"

Batti laughed. "'Tis odd that no lady is without affectation!" he exclaimed. "Let it alone, however; it does not become you."

"It is not affectation," Johanna replied. "Ask Helena if I am not paralyzed by a mere appearance in public——"

"That can be overcome," Batti interposed.

"Hardly! The mere thought of those myriad eyes upon me——!" And she shuddered. "But I will be honest. Even if I could overcome my timidity, I should reject your proposal out of regard for my grandfather."

"Oho!" cried Batti, and his face flushed with anger. "My art is as honourable as any——"

"I am not disputing that," Johanna interrupted him gently; "but here we have to do with the invincible prejudices of an old man. As you know, he never forgave my mother's marriage."

"And you would have regard for that old ass?" shouted Batti.

"I respect and love my grandfather," said Johanna.

Batti was silent for a while. Then he shook his head, and laughed.

"Ah, by Jove! there comes the Princess again," he said. "Keep that air; it becomes you famously. The regard you talk of is pure folly; but you shall have your way. I should have liked to see your father's name on my playbills; but then, if it must not be, we can find another; and another nationality too if you like. Mademoiselle So-and-so, Miss This-and-that,—we'll arrange all that. Is there any Carlo Batti to be found in the parish register? There I am called Heinrich Rauchspatz, after my father, who kept a grocer's shop in a little town in North Germany. Good old Rauchspatz had his prejudices too. He thought that to have one of his name appear as an equestrian artist might affect the respectability of his firm. Oh, what a row there was! On the other hand, I could not bring myself to measure out molasses and weigh out snuff to customers, so we struck a bargain. He let me off. I changed my name to Carlo Batti, and I think I have done it credit. So now choose a name you like, and it shall be yours."

"I cannot; believe me, I cannot," Johanna replied. "Thank you again, but let me beg you to say no more about it. It distresses me, and can lead to no result."

For a while they rode on in silence, and then Batti said, "One word more, Fräulein Johanna. Have you considered that if you accede to my plan you insure yourself a brilliant future and a certain income? You are now vis-à-vis de rien."

Johanna blushed. Twice had she heard this in the last twenty-four hours.

"I am, perhaps, not quite so helpless as you think," she said, in a voice that faltered. "I hope I possess another talent worth cultivating. I have—you are the first to whom I have mentioned it—I have been trying to write."

Carlo Batti gave a long, low whistle. "A curious taste!" he said; "that for riding on a snail when you might have a race-horse! 'But every elf must please himself.' If you should change your mind you know where to find me. I shall always be ready to repeat my offer."

"How kind you are!" said Johanna. "Thank you again; and do not be angry with me." As she spoke she held out her hand to him.

He shook it kindly. "Angry, no!" he said; "but I will not deny that it vexes me. But let us say no more about it. We have not had our gallop yet."

And away they went along the Herrenhausen Avenue.

Batti's disappointment was, however, too great to be dissipated by the ride. The longer he thought of Johanna's refusal the more it irritated him, and when at his daily breakfast at the hotel he met Dr. Stein, the latter instantly asked what ailed his 'dear friend.'

"I have been vexed; but I do not want to talk about it," Batti shouted, as if to take all present into his confidence.

"Then let us have our breakfast," said the other. "A glass of wine will wash away your ill humour."

"Ill humour! Who told you that I was ill-humoured?" Batti shouted again, as he took his seat. And even before the wine was brought Dr. Stein had learned that Batti's boasted scheme with regard to Johanna had come to nothing.

"Perhaps you did not offer her enough," he said.

"It never came to that," Batti replied. "No, the money question does not touch her; it is her fine relatives that stick in her crop. Although the stuck-up crowd will have nothing to do with her, the only reply she has for me is regard for them. 'Tis enough to drive one mad!"

Dr. Stein appeared to reflect. "What will you give me for taming your bird for you?" he asked, at last.

Batti shrugged his shoulders. "I could have done it myself if any one could," he replied. "I have more influence with her than you have."

"I'll lay you a wager!" cried the young man. "A dozen of champagne that I drive the haughty fair into your circus."

Batti eyed him suspiciously. "What do you mean to do?" he said.

"That's my secret," said Stein, with a malicious smile. "A dozen of champagne. Yes or no?"

"Done!" cried Batti, shaking the hand offered him. At first the business seemed to him hardly fair; but it was not his nature to torment himself with suspicions. If Dr. Stein won, Johanna would be the gainer; if he lost, all would remain as it was. And Batti's ill humour vanished. When he saw Johanna again he not only conducted himself towards her with great friendliness, he even succeeded in suppressing all reference to his plans for her. His task of self-control was made easier for him by a summer rain, which prevented the morning ride for several days.

Johanna had all the more leisure to ponder her plans for the future. There was much to arouse her anxiety. She had no idea of the value of literary labour; she knew no one who could advise and help her. She could hardly expect that Ludwig Werner, who could have done so, would sympathize with her desire; and, moreover, she was separated from him by many leagues of sea and land.

Through all her care and anxiety she persisted in writing. Her strong healthy nature rebelled against the pressure that had been brought to bear upon it. Grief and pain seemed but to increase her ability to work, and when one day Dr. Wolf was again announced, she had just completed her first story.

The pale little man, with his quiet, melancholy eyes, was so sympathetic to her that involuntarily she held out her hand as to a friend, and suddenly it occurred to her that she could ask of him the advice which she needed. She had learned at Dönninghausen, through Löbel Wolf, the nom de plume of his son, and had discovered that she had read various of his essays and criticisms with much interest and pleasure. If his verdict upon her literary attempt should be favourable, she could proceed with confidence.

She told him how in her changed circumstances she had occupied herself, and she informed him also that she had begun to write some time before leaving Dönninghausen. Suddenly she paused, unable to proceed.

He came to her aid. "If you think that I can be of any service to you, pray command me," he said.

"I do wish to ask a favour of you," she said. "Will you read over my attempt, and tell me frankly what you think of it?"

"Gladly. You look as if you could bear the truth," the young man replied. And while Johanna was wrapping up her manuscript, he added, "And your answer for the Freiherr? May I say that you accept his proposal?"

With trembling hands she laid the package on the table before him. "I cannot," she said. "Do not misunderstand me. I do not act, as you think, from a want of tenderness. On the contrary, I know that my refusal will gratify my grandfather."

Dr. Wolf looked at her inquiringly.

"If the jewels are mine, I cannot—as they are a family heirloom—sell them. If they are not mine, I do not choose to lend myself to a farce," she said.

"You know what induced the Freiherr to make the proposal."

"Why does he not tell me that he cares for me, and would like to help me?" the girl cried. "If he does not consider me worthy of his sympathy, I cannot accept his aid."

Dr. Wolf arose. "You are right," he said, with a gentle smile. "You are the old Freiherr's genuine grand-daughter." With these words he took his leave, carrying with him her manuscript.

The next evening she received a note from him. He wrote: "I have just finished your story, and I cannot refrain from wishing you 'God-speed.' In spite of the deficiencies manifest in your work,—all technique must be learned,—it shows much decided talent, a strange mixture of grace and force. The form is not always correct, betraying the beginner; but the colours are fine, and in spite of the optimism of your views, which produces upon me the effect of a fairy-tale, the personages and situations of your story are full of undeniable truth and life. As soon as my time permits I will come to discuss details by word of mouth."

Johanna clasped her hands upon the note. "God-speed!" she said to herself, smiling through her tears.

DR. STEIN'S SCHEME.

Life at Dönninghausen since Johanna's departure, although outwardly unchanged, was no longer the same.

The Freiherr applied himself more diligently than ever to the administration of his extended estates, but the strictest attention to his work did not do away for him with the sensation of emptiness and loneliness. Whether he rode out or busied himself with accounts, at table with the family or shut up in his study, everywhere he missed his grand-daughter's watchful eyes, her comprehension of him, her vivacity, her fresh interest in life. In spite of the habit of more than seventy years, his sister hardly seemed so much his own as this young creature. He had always rather looked down upon the gentle docile Thekla, while in Johanna, in spite of the respect she always manifested towards him, he recognized an equal. And because she was so, and because she had found a home with him, her desertion of him, as he called it, was all the more irritating; and since he could not prevent his thoughts from dwelling upon her continually, he was all the more careful not to betray this weakness in words.

Magelone had long since returned to Dönninghausen, graceful and capricious as ever, and yet Aunt Thekla fancied she was hardly the same; her merriment seemed forced. The monotony of her life weighed upon her more heavily, although she did not bewail it so often and so loudly as formerly. She did not know that Otto had confessed everything to his aunt, and the old lady shrank from telling her, although she sometimes thought that Magelone's mind would be easier if she could unburden it freely. She must be unhappy, for was not all the misfortune that had befallen Dönninghausen of late her fault? And it was because she knew this and repented it that her behaviour towards Otto was so strange: now so frigidly cold, and now so provokingly derisive.

Otto had taken up his abode in Tannhagen, and was managing the small estate. He seldom came to Dönninghausen, and when he did so he avoided being alone with any one member of the family. Aunt Thekla was more troubled about him than about Magelone. The discomfort which evidently weighed upon him at Dönninghausen seemed to her the result of his repentance, and of his longing love for Johanna. She and the Freiherr were both convinced that he had written repeatedly to Johanna; and when she would ask him if he had received an answer, and he would hurriedly reply in the negative and then change the subject, the old lady's heart would be filled with bitterness towards Johanna. She did not reflect that in concealing his fault from his grandfather Otto was constantly sinning afresh. Now and then she really blamed herself for striving, in spite of her brother's express command and of Johanna's heartless treatment of 'poor Otto,' to keep up even indirectly a kind of communication with the girl. Notwithstanding these scruples of conscience, she waited impatiently for news from Löbel Wolf; and when, one day, he made his appearance, and gave her a detailed account of his son's visit to Johanna, her grudge against her was drowned in compassion. Instead of the love she had dreamed of in her pretty woodland nest, to be confined in the close atmosphere of a sick-room! At the old lady's request, Löbel Wolf declared his readiness to treat in person with Johanna, and to tell the Freiherr, whom fortunately he had not yet seen, that he had not yet made his intended trip to Hanover, but would do so in a few days.

Scarcely had Löbel Wolf driven out of the court-yard when the Freiherr came into his sister's room and called out to her, "Good news! Johann Leopold is coming home!"

"When?" Aunt Thekla asked, half startled, half pleased.

The Freiherr shrugged his shoulders.

"The letter says shortly; whether that means in a few weeks or a few months who can say? You know the lad's ways. He never is precise."

"How is he?" she inquired.

"He says nothing about his health in his letter," said the Freiherr. "He does not, however, appear to be perfectly well. He complains generally, talks about disappointment in what he had hoped travel would do for him, and so on; but how much of it may be hypochondria it is impossible to say. Moreover, he seems to have been suddenly attacked by home-sickness. He is not even going to await Dr. Werner's return. Perhaps Werner sends him home. I was always afraid that that climate would not do for Johann Leopold. The lad begs me to answer his letter immediately; poste restante, Marseilles; and I want you, my dear Thekla, to do this for me. Tell him all that has taken place here, and let him know that I do not want to speak of it; and send him a cordial welcome home from me. I shall be glad to have the fellow here once more."

The old lady promised to write before night, and the Freiherr left the room. She remained behind, lost in anxious revery; she feared fresh disappointments and struggles for those whom she loved. Magelone, indeed, seemed more awake to her responsibilities than she had been; but, sensitive as Johann Leopold was, he would surely perceive that she was estranged from him; and since, according to Aunt Thekla's belief, he was not really attached to Magelone, he would be only too glad to sever the tie between them. And would not this, perhaps, be best? If Magelone were free to love Otto without conscientious scruples, might she not succeed in steadying him and consoling him for Johanna's loss? It would be difficult to persuade the Freiherr to agree to their marriage; but if he should see that Otto could be thus consoled, and Magelone thus made happy, he would finally consent, particularly if Johann Leopold lent his aid to the pair by making up his mind to declare frankly that he wished to remain true to the memory of his dead love. Aunt Thekla, whose entire life had been devoted to a dead love and to grief for his loss, never doubted that Johann Leopold had buried in the coffin of the betrothed of his youth every hope and wish of his life. He had, indeed, consented to a marriage with Magelone, in obedience to the arrangements of the head of the family, but his increasing melancholy had shown that this obedience was almost beyond his strength. So long as he was the only one to be sacrificed, Aunt Thekla had shrunk from putting forward any objection to the match; but now that she knew that Magelone's happiness, and perhaps more than that, would be imperilled by this marriage,—for she had shown how weak she was to resist temptation,—now Aunt Thekla was resolved to do all that she could to avert this fresh calamity from the children of her heart and home.

Still occupied with these thoughts, she went at the usual hour to the drawing-room. While yet in the corridor, she heard Magelone singing and playing, and as she entered there rang exultantly in her ears,—