"Yes, uncle, that's all right. I wanted to confide something to you--"
"You can trust me with anything. As to that matter, I can call your mother in heaven to bear me witness--"
"There's no need of that. Well, as I was going to say, Irmgard has had a sad life--"
"I know all about it. When I was in the city with her, I made up my mind that there must be something or other of that kind. It may be that they wanted her to marry somebody that she didn't like. May be she's a left-handed child, or may be she's got a husband and left him. She looked at the big houses in such a queer way--she always seemed as if she wanted to creep out of sight."
Walpurga was surprised at her uncle, who would not permit her to say a word, and suddenly it occurred to her: I was just like him once, and thought that I must always keep chatting instead of listening to what others had to tell me. She looked at her uncle for a long while and he, taking it as a compliment, now told her, for the first time, of what he had felt on that journey with Irma, and of all that he had seen while with her--the lions, the serpents, the high priest and the "Magic Flute" were all mixed together in inextricable confusion.
Walpurga made up her mind that there was no need of divulging her secret, and contented herself by telling her uncle that he must never leave Irma alone, and that if any stranger came--no matter who he might be--he should take her secretly into the woods, so that no one should see her.
The uncle promised to do as he was bid.
"Yes," he added, "what a strange world it is. Just think of it! The herbs I take to the apothecary in the next village are for the baths of young Countess Wildenort, the daughter-in-law to the one I used to know. While I was standing in front of the apothecary's the other day, a man came riding by, on a beautiful, glossy black horse. Its legs looked as if they'd been turned in a lathe. The man had a child sitting in front of him on the horse, a boy about the size of our Peter, with a blue frock, and wearing a feather in his hat, and the boy was so like Irmgard it might have been her own child. And the apothecary said to me that it was Count Wildenort, the son of the one I used to know. And so, when he rode past, I said: 'Good-morning, Count?' He pulled up and asked: 'How do you know me?'
"And I said: 'I knew your father, and he was a good man--' And what do you think he said? Not a word. He rode off without so much as thanking me. They tell me he's not so good a man as his father was, and they say his mother-in-law has him under her thumb, so that he daren't move. But the child is beautiful and the very picture of our Irma. It's wonderful, what strange things happen in the world."
Walpurga trembled, and made her uncle promise that he would never mention Irma to a soul in the village.