Eric requested that he might remain behind; Sonnenkamp immediately agreed, adding kindly that it would probably be agreeable to Eric to have a few quiet days alone. This considerateness appeared very friendly to Eric, who returned it by saying that it should be his endeavor not to estrange Roland from his family.
Pranken drove over with his sister, and Bella told Eric that Clodwig sent a message, begging for his company during their absence. Eric became thus aware, for the first time, that he had never been expected to join the party; he immediately stifled the sensitive feelings arising from this, as well as from some other occurrences. Roland alone urged him pressingly to go with them, saying, unreservedly,—
"Manna will be very much vexed if you do not come; she ought to see you too."
Sonnenkamp smiled oddly at this entreaty, and Pranken turned away to conceal his features.
Roland took a most affectionate leave of Eric; it was the first time that he was to be parted from him for hours and through the night: he promised, meanwhile, to tell Manna much about him. Something unusual must have been passing in the boy's mind, for just at the moment of departure, he said to Eric,—
"You and the house, you don't go away from your place."
Eric pressed his hand warmly.
They drove to the steamboat in three carriages. Pranken with Frau Ceres, Sonnenkamp with Fräulein Perini and Bella, and, in the third carriage, Roland and the servants.
They drove a short distance up the river to take the boat, and as they afterwards shot quickly past the Villa, Eric was standing on the beautiful, wooded hill, whence there was a view down the stream, where the mountains seemed to meet to compel the river to spread out into a lake. Roland waved his hat from the boat, and Eric answered the greeting in the same way, saying to himself,—
"Farewell, boy dear to my heart."