Johanna, too, felt the happy influence of the 'blind motions of the spring.' Latterly she had been greatly depressed,—anxiety on Ludwig's account, she said to herself. He had written that his principal object in going to India was to study climatic fevers; but what really troubled her, although she did not acknowledge it to herself, was Otto's silence. More than five weeks had passed since she had written to him, and she had received no reply. Magelone asked nearly every day, "No letter from Otto yet? I call it very discourteous." And Johanna could not bring herself to confess that the cold tone of her letter was probably the cause of his silence. She could not herself understand how, after their last conversation, she could have brought herself to write so. She repeatedly told herself that Otto could not possibly reply, and yet she looked for some word from him, eagerly and anxiously, as each post came in.
To-day she had felt especially melancholy, but the airs of spring swept away all trouble from her mind. As she looked around her she forgot herself, and felt only the refreshing renewal of life everywhere abroad.
She had followed the travelled road upwards,—the saw-mill was at the upper end of the valley,—through the village, over the bridge, and across the meadows on the right bank of the stream. But whilst stopping at the mill to deliver her grandfather's message, she looked longingly over to the steep left bank. In spite of the miller's remonstrances, she rode her horse over the wooden bridge; he clambered up the rocky ascent, and away went steed and rider along the narrow path on the edge of the forest. She felt as though she had wings.
Suddenly at a turn of the valley she perceived two horse-men coming up the stream on the right bank, and, recognizing her grandfather and old Martin, the groom, she remembered that the Freiherr had called after her, "If I can, I will come to meet you."
He, too, saw her now. He stopped, beckoned, shouted to her something that she could not understand, and then turned his horse. But she had already turned hers. She gave the spirited creature a slight cut with her whip, and as she shook her bridle-rein it leaped from the high bank directly across the foaming stream. For an instant Johanna felt stunned as she found herself on the right bank. Leo ran to and fro on the other side, barking in great distress.
The Freiherr rode towards her. "Are you mad, child?" he called out to her from afar, whilst old Martin observed, with a grin, "There's no denyin' that our Fräulein rides equal to any dragoon."
And her grandfather, too, made but a poor feint of displeasure. When he found both horse and rider unharmed, he added, "Thunder and lightning! that was a leap that I should have been proud of myself when I was a young fellow. How did you come to take it, my girl?"
She laughed. "I hardly know myself," she said. "I did not take time to think; I had to do it."
"Just like me!" exclaimed the Freiherr. "Yes, yes, you are my own flesh and blood, a genuine Dönninghausen, and a rare one." He frowned, and for a while they rode along in silence. Then he said, "It is nonsense to leave you out of the family, and a stop must be put to it. I had intended to surprise you at the New Year's dinner with the intelligence that I am going to adopt you and give you my name, that there may be no longer any disagreeable memory between us. Johann Leopold's accident prevented it. I tell you to-day as a reward for your feat of horsemanship."
Johanna was startled. At another time she might not have ventured any remonstrance; now the exhilarating effect of her 'feat of horsemanship' had not yet passed off, and she replied, in a low, firm voice, "Thank you, my dear grandfather; I know how kindly you mean this, but I cannot accept your offer."