At a very early hour in the morning they all assembled to drink coffee. Mr. Rosenberg left at the same time for Munich. Hamilton concluded that he was satisfied with his wife’s arrangement respecting him, as he shook his hand warmly at parting, and hoped to see him again in the course of the ensuing week. Madame Rosenberg gave various parting directions and commissions, which Hamilton did not quite understand; neither did Mr. Rosenberg, he suspected, though he listened to his wife’s orders with a patience which made it evident that he resembled Job in more respects than in having daughters, than whom “no women in all the land were found so fair.”
The char-à-banc which they were so fortunate as to obtain in Traunstein had five seats, and accommodated the whole party.
At the first respectably steep hill, both young men sprang out of the carriage, and when it halted to take them up again, Hamilton had no difficulty in ceding his place beside Hildegarde to Zedwitz, who looked the personification of gratitude; and well he might, for poor Hamilton had got a most riotous companion, and was so placed that he could scarcely avoid overhearing the whispered plans of future happiness which were made, revised, and corrected behind him; while before, he could observe the tactics of Zedwitz, who, with no inconsiderable skill, was reconnoitring the ground previous to the grand attack which he was meditating.
The afternoon was far advanced before they reached the peasant’s house, where the coachman and his horses were to pass the night, while they pursued their way on foot. The ascent was steeper and longer than they had expected, and the heat intense. Hildegarde, Crescenz, and the two boys proved excellent pedestrians; Major Stultz toiled wearily after them—his effort to appear vigorous deserved more success—but alas! after having wiped the drops of perspiration from his crimson face at least twenty times, and even removed his stiff, black stock, in order to breathe more freely, he sank exhausted on a fragment of rock, declaring that since his Russian campaign of 1812, he had never been able to recover the right use of his feet. Madame Rosenberg looked for a moment undecided what she should do; she wished to be civil, and offered, after some hesitation, to remain with him until after he had rested, but on his declining, she said at once that she would go on before, and prepare the supper. Poor man! he looked wistfully towards Crescenz. Madame Rosenberg understood him, but shook her head disapprovingly, said she would leave him one of the guides, and begged he would not hurry himself in the least. Crescenz, who had been amusing herself with her two brothers, gathering flowers and picking wild raspberries, now turned to Hamilton, and giving him a handful of the latter, told him she would show him where to get more. The invitation was irresistible, and after telling her mother that they intended to overtake Hildegarde, who was still in sight, they hurried off together.
The conversation was at first desultory, interrupted by the scrambling through the bushes, and mutually offering the largest raspberries; by degrees, however, the fragrant fruit was neglected, and the flowers—even the beautiful pyrolas and sweet-scented cyclamen, gathered for and given to Major Stultz—were thoughtlessly picked to pieces, and thrown away, while she listened to Hamilton’s remarks, or answered his numerous questions. She spoke without reserve of her mode of life at school; attached a girlish importance to her former companion’s opinions and most trifling acts; complained of not having been allowed to speak during school-hours, and of being obliged to run and jump about at recreation-time, when she would rather have sat in a corner to talk to her friend Lina; of having to listen to reading when at dinner; but most of all, of having had all her long hair cut off the day of her entrance, “I was quite inconsolable about it,” she said, laughing, “and cried for several days, but Hildegarde did not care in the least; perhaps,” she added, “because she was a year older.”
Hamilton thought there might be another reason—the absence of personal vanity—but, of course, he did not say so. They had been ten years at school, without ever having been allowed to spend a day at home.
“So,” she continued, “we knew nothing at all of my step-mother, and very little of papa, though he used to come and see us often, and talk to Mademoiselle Hortense about us. At the examinations they generally both came, and mamma used to bring us an iced tart; but Hildegarde would rather she had stayed away, as she was ashamed of her.”
“And why was she ashamed of her?”
“Oh, because all the other girls had such nice mothers and aunts, and Hildegarde thinks mamma so very vulgar.”
“She seems, however, a good kind of person.”