"But, Maria! Don't you know there has been an armistice proclaimed?"
"Between whom?"
"The French, Bavarians, and Austrians."
"To be sure I do," said she with curling lip; "but what have we to do with that?"
"Oh, what a question!" groaned Speckbacher.
"It hardly amounts to one, I think," said Maria. "Why, have not all the Austrian soldiery deserted to us, and is not the Sandwirth Commander-in-Chief?"
"My dearest Maria, Baron Hormayr has been using all his influence with us both to forbear from shedding blood in a hopeless case. And he has promised to take me with him in his own carriage to Vienna to be out of the way a little, till the affair has blown over.
"What, and give up the cause?" cried Maria in blank dismay.
Her look smote her husband to the heart.
"Then you don't approve of it?" said he, inquiringly.