Albrecht

by Arlo Bates

Mayhap it was of these things that the Countess Erna dreamed as one spring morning she sat by her open lattice, albeit she had before her a parchment from which she might be reading. From below arose the noise of horses' hoofs, the cries of grooms and pages, the clatter of spurs upon the stone pavement, and all the sounds that betoken the preparation of a troop to leave the castle. So little did she heed, however, that she seemed not to hear. So motionless was she that the doves which had perched upon the wide window-ledge in perfect fearlessness had ceased to regard her at all, and preened themselves in the sun with soft, full-throated cooings, contrasting oddly with the clamor which arose from below.

The morning sun shone gloriously, casting a flood of light through the room; and although Erna sat withdrawn from the fervor of its direct rays, she seemed to glow in the radiance like a lily golden-hearted. Her hair, yellow as the flax on a fairy's distaff, caught a stray sunbeam which stole through a crevice in the curtain-folds, and scattered the light in a hundred reflections, making of them an aureole about the graceful young head. The eyes, blue as an oker-bell, were now and then raised from the richly illuminated parchment before her, absently regarding the doves as if she saw them not, while the slender hands which held the scroll were only a little warmer in their color than the robe of snowy wool loosely confined at the waist with a golden girdle. As she sat there in the still chamber, withdrawn from the bustle of the courtyard below in mind no less than in place, there was about the countess an atmosphere of peace, of innocence, of purity, one might almost have said of holiness, that he must be dull indeed who could not feel, or who, feeling, failed to reverence.

There was little reverence, however, in the mien of the old dame who came hastily into the chamber, and broke in upon the reading and the dreaming of the Countess Erna with exclamations full of vexation.

"Body of Saint Fridolin!" she cried. "Thou sittest here reading as quietly as if thy suitor, Count Stephen, were a thousand leagues away instead of waiting below to take leave of thee. No wonder that he declares that thou hast not a drop of warm blood in thy body, as his squire reported to my damsel."

"Count Stephen is no suitor of mine," Erna responded calmly, "as no one knoweth better than thou, Aunt Adelaide. He is my guest, however, and I should be loath to fail in aught of courtesy toward him. Why have I not been summoned if he be in truth waiting?"

"Well, if he be not waiting," the old dame replied with a lower voice and some softening of manner, "he is at least ready to set out, and that is much the same thing. It would certainly look more attentive on thy part shouldst thou be in the hall when he comes to take leave rather than to wait to be sent for."

"Doubtless; but I have no wish to be attentive to Count Stephen beyond the claim of any guest."

"But Count Stephen is a member of the family."

"His connection is hardly near enough to count in this matter," Erna answered. "Dear Aunt," she continued, coming closer to the other, and laying a caressing hand lightly upon the old woman's arm, "I am sorry that thou shouldst be disappointed. I did what I could to fulfil thy wish when I bade thee have Count Stephen come here, although what we had heard of him was so little of the sort to make me long for such a guest, because I knew that more than for aught else in the world thou didst long for the perpetuation of the Von Rittenberg name by my becoming his wife. I shrank from the knight from the first moment I saw him, and never could it be that I should be brought to look upon him with favor. Happily he feels the same repugnance to me, so that I am spared the pain of telling him nay; but I cannot fail to be glad at his departure."

The old dame, who was so small and so old that she seemed to have shrivelled away in long centuries, overlooked and forgotten by the Angel of Death, was evidently moved by the caressing air of the countess; but her grievance was too deep and of too long standing to be so lightly passed over, and she could not restrain herself from the further venting of her displeasure.