"I quite agree with you. Tony is the Forest Miller's only child. Her mother was an excellent woman: so long as she lived, the forest mill was the most highly respected house in the whole community, and the resort and refuge of all the poor. Little Tony went daily for four years to school, three or four miles off, and in winter she came on a donkey. A child like that, going daily alone for years through a valley, encircled by rocks and by the forest, cannot fail to become thoughtful and observant, if naturally of a quick and lively disposition; for there is much to see and hear of animal life in the forest, unknown to the world. Little Tony was a very quick child, and she was often to be heard telling her thoughts aloud, and singing songs in the forest. She has a most lovely voice. Two years ago her mother died, and the guardian appointed by her father is the innkeeper at Wenger, whose sister shortly after married the Forest Miller. From that hour the girl had never another happy moment; and her guardian being unluckily the brother of her stepmother, it comes to pass that Tony will be forced to marry Adam Röttmann."
Suddenly the Pastorin interrupted herself, saying, "I must surely have left the house door open, for I hear some one on the stairs."
"Hush! be quiet!" said she softly, opening the door. "Oh! it is you, Martina; come in, but tread softly, for the Herr Pastor is asleep. What message have you for me?"
"Leegart sent me here, to bring you these nightcaps."
"Why did she not come herself?"
"She is in our house, busy making a new jacket for my Joseph."
"You dress Joseph too smartly; you will spoil him," said the Pastorin.
"Leegart takes no payment from me," said Martina timidly, and, turning away suddenly, the red shawl in which she had wrapped her head fell back. The young man gazed earnestly at her pretty oval face, and large dark brown eyes. Martina felt that he was looking at her, and casting down her eyes blushed deeply, groping for the handle of the door in going out, as if she had been in the dark.
The Pastorin, however, followed her into the passage, and said, "You would like to know about the Röttmännin? The state of her health is as bad as that of her heart. She sent for the Herr Pastor last night, but she is not dangerously ill; far from it."
"God is my witness that I do not wish for her death," said Martina earnestly, laying both hands on her heart.