It would appear from this speech, that Lenora ought to have joined the couple who were seated outside the cottage, with the penitent air of one who had neglected her duty; but, on the contrary, she took up quite another tone.
"So, Mr. Franz!" shouted she, in a voice that would have filled St. Paul's, "you're come back again at last, are you, sir, after leaving me these twenty-four hours to do your work!—you might, at any rate, have had the civility to tell me you were going; but no, not you!"
"What's the matter now?" said Franz, doggedly.
"What's the matter?" repeated Lenora, still chafing; "why, have not I, in addition to my own work, had to do every bit of man's work that has been done about the place? Who, but for me, would have watered the horse, turned out the cows, sheep, and goats after milking, and a hundred things besides? As I was driving our sheep to pasture, Gaspard looked over the hedge, and 'Do the same for me, my good girl, will you?' says he, 'for I'm off with my rifle.' So there was I with two flocks of sheep on my hands, besides the cows and the goats; and, not knowing exactly how many sheep Gaspard had, I counted them twice very carefully, and, the second time, I missed one. So I wasn't by any means sure whether I had counted them wrong the first time, or whether one had strayed; but somehow I thought one had strayed, because I fancied I remembered that the number was an odd number, and now it was even; and also that I had remarked a weak-eyed, rather ill-looking ewe, that had something particular in its bleat. Well, I could see nothing of this ewe, so I made sure it had strayed; and, as it belonged to a neighbour, I was even more sorry for it than if it had been my own. So I sought it here, and I sought it there; first in all the likely, and next in all the unlikely places; and, meanwhile, the sun was scorching hot, as if it had been August. At last I got to the pass where one of your cows pitched over last spring—"
"That was a good way off," muttered Franz.
"Truly it was," said the girl, with self-pity; "however, there I trudged; and just as I had got to the brink of the ravine I heard that queer-sounding bleat. I looked down, and there was the ewe, who had toppled over and fallen into the upper part of a thorn-bush, from which she could not get out. So I had to scramble down, get hold of her, and lay her across my shoulders, climb up the bank again, and carry her all the way back. Such a weight she was! All this trouble you might have saved me."
—"Lenora!"—
"Well?"
"We've taken Innsbruck!"
"No!"—