"But, child, say how you saw it," said the sympathetic Consuelo, who now put in her word, whereupon one who was paler than the others advanced and said with some difficulty:
"How fearful! Madre mia, how fearful! I thought I should have died—because you see the bear—the bear was horrible."
She was in such a state of panic, that she could only utter these incoherent words.
Then the resolute Consuelo came forward, and said in a firm voice:
"You see, Manin, this child was with us in the thickest part of the wood a long way off. She heard a bird sing, a mavis I believe—was it not a mavis? Very well, then she heard a thrush, and she turned in the direction whence the sound came. She went some distance, but could not come across it. When she turned back, the bear came out of the bushes, it attacked her, pulled her to the ground, and without doing her any harm, we do not know why, it went off and disappeared."
The famous bear-hunter then quietly rose from his seat, and said in the quiet, firm tone pertaining to heroes:
"Let us go and see what it is."
He asked for a gun, and followed from afar by the pallid damsels, he beat the wood. The only thing forthcoming was a German pig, one of a pair that the count had to improve the breed. The female had died, and the male wandered about sad and alone in the depths of the wood whilst his companion was metamorphosed into black puddings and chops. There were strong suspicions that the author of the attack was this widowed hog, but the young lady of the adventure swore and maintained that it had been a bear that had attacked her, and that they were not to tell her it was that animal, because she had often seen a bear in the zoological museum of the university.
Fernanda had gone off some time before with Garnet. They repaired to the garden. There the young lady took his arm and went several times up and down the same path, where she had seen the count and Amalia.
"You are very much in love with me. Is it not so?" she asked, suddenly.