"Well, we may possibly chance to meet again soon, since I take my ride almost every afternoon about this hour, and am very fond of the broad road leading towards the Grünhagen woods. Adieu, Herr Kurt von Poseneck."
"Au revoir, Fräulein von Hohenwald."
She gave him a friendly little nod, touched her horse with the whip, and vanished in a minute along the road leading to Castle Hohenwald.
Kurt looked after her vanishing figure, and then resigned himself to delightful reflections. Was it not something more than chance that had decreed that he, who had found his way so often in American forests, should lose it here, and thus make the acquaintance of this charming girl?
The next day about four o'clock Kurt was seized with an irresistible desire to inspect the forests; he could not stay in the house; it drove him forth, much to his uncle's surprise, who, however, ascribed it to the love of nature engendered by his life in the open air in America. Kurt did not this time, however, pursue the path he had taken on the previous day; he remembered the ploughboy's gaping wonder, and did not choose to become a theme for gossip to the Hohenwald servants; he followed, instead, the more direct course across the Grünhagen fields to the woods, but scarcely had he reached it, when chance guided him to the very spot upon the broad road leading from Castle Hohenwald where he had been so unfortunate as to frighten Celia's horse. The same chance that led Kurt to this place arranged that Celia also, who had hitherto been very careless about the time at which she took her afternoon ride, suddenly required her horse to be saddled on the stroke of four. Old John, the groom, could not imagine why Fräulein Celia should all at once be "so very particular." She never had seemed to care whether the horse were brought to the door a quarter of an hour sooner or later, and now she insisted sharply upon punctuality, although it was the Baron's birthday, and the old servant had had a great deal to do, as Fräulein Celia knew. She could scarcely restrain her impatience to be gone, and as she galloped off down the road, the old man looked after her with a thoughtful shake of the head.
"We may possibly chance to meet again soon," Celia had said to Kurt as she took leave of him, and chance conducted her to the very spot where she had met him yesterday, and where she now met him again. From afar she espied his light coat among the trees, and her lovely face was lit up with a happy smile.
Had she expected him? Impossible! She had made no appointment with him. She knew enough of social rules to understand that a young lady could not appoint a rendezvous with a young man whom she had seen but once, and then only for a short time. Of course it was chance that had brought them both to this spot at the same time, but she was very glad of it, and greeted Kurt with a charming smile.
It was quite natural that she should now walk her horse that Kurt might walk beside her, although it cost her a struggle with Pluto to induce him to agree to this new order of things. Kurt walked beside her, looking up at her with admiration. How graceful was her every movement as she reined in and controlled her impatient horse! She held the curb in a firm grasp, but there was nothing unfeminine in the strength thus put forth. For a while her whole attention was given to her horse, but when she had reduced him to a state of obedient quiescence she replied kindly to Kurt's greeting, and when he expressed his pleasure that a fortunate chance had again brought them together, she answered, with perfect freedom from embarrassment, that she also was much pleased. As she spoke, her smile was so arch that he could not but laugh. And then they laughed together like two children. They knew well what made them laugh, although they said no more about it.
It sounded almost like an excuse when Celia said that she had come from home nearly a quarter of an hour later than usual this afternoon, old John had been so long saddling Pluto, but that she could not scold him, for he was very old now, almost seventy, and he had been up half the night helping her to hang oaken garlands all about her father's beloved garden-room, that he might be surprised by their beauty when Franz rolled him in from his bedroom at five o'clock on his birthday morning. And her father had been very much delighted,--he so loved his oaks,--and he had been specially pleased with a tobacco-bag that she had embroidered for him as a birthday gift. He was not very fond of embroidery, but he knew how hard it was for her to sit still at any kind of work, and he had been touched by the trouble she had taken for him.
Thus Celia talked on, and Kurt listened with rapt attention, as if she were imparting to him the most important secrets. Her delight in the garlands of oak-leaves and in the completion of her gift for her father charmed him. He thought her almost more lovely now than when, a few moments before, her eyes had sparkled and flashed in her struggle with her horse. He did not know which to admire more, the blooming girl or the lovely child; he only knew that both were adorable.