"Yes, comrade, Fräulein Milch is a living roll of honor for the whole region; if you want information about anyone, ask her. And for Heaven's sake, don't let the Countess Wolfsgarten give you any medicine. Fräulein Milch knows much more about it—and no one can apply leeches so well as she can."
Eric saw the good old woman's embarrassment, and began to praise her beautiful flowers, and thriving plants, which stood in the window. The Major asserted that she understood gardening perhaps even better than Herr Sonnenkamp, and if it were only known with what small means she raised her plants, she would get the first prize at the exhibition, instead of the gentlemen with their great forcing-houses.
Turning the conversation, Fräulein Milch said to Eric that it was the chief misfortune of Roland, the poor rich boy, that he had no real satisfaction.
"No real satisfaction?" laughed the Major; "just listen to that!"
"Yes," asserted Fräulein Milch, the ribbons and bows on her cap nodding assentingly as she spoke, "he has merely pleasure and amusements that money can buy, but they are not genuine; and any one who only drives through the world for pleasure, with nothing to do in it, seeks satisfaction in vain."
A gleam of pleasure from Eric's eyes rested on the good Fräulein, and at that moment a secret bond of union, a sense of mutual understanding, was formed between them.
Accompanied by both as far as the garden-gate, Eric left the house. When the door was opened, a brown and white spaniel jumped upon the Major.
"Halloo!" cried the Major, in a tone of mingled scolding and caress, "where have you been again, you disorderly vagabond, who can tell where? and here we've had a visitor; old as you are, you will never learn good behavior and regular habits. Shame on you—shame!"
So spoke the Major to his dog Laadi, well-known in all the country round; he kept a female dog, because the village dogs never fought with her.
As the Major left the garden with Eric, he said,—