"Flora!" the councillor exclaimed, in a voice expressing both warning and entreaty.
"Yes, yes, Herr von Römer, I perfectly understand that I must pay due regard to your new honours. Heavens! how my poor shoulders are weighted down! And why should I do penance because hearts cling to me like burrs?"
She took her hat, and gathered up her train to go,—then paused as she passed Kitty.
"You see, my dear," she said, putting her forefinger beneath her sister's chin and turning her face up to her, "this all comes of a poor girl's giving way to sentiment for a moment and imagining herself in love. She suddenly finds herself in a trap, and admits sorrowfully that the trite old doctrine, 'See, ye who join in endless union, that heart with heart be in communion,' contains a terrible truth. Think of your sister, and take care of yourself, child."
She left the room, and Kitty looked after her in wide-eyed wonder. What a strange fiancée her beautiful sister was!
[CHAPTER VI.]
Near the western boundary of the park stood the remains of the former Castle Baumgarten. Of the entire structure, once surrounded by a fosse, only a single tower—of considerable dimensions, however,—was left, flanked on one side by the blackened ruin of an ancient wing of the building. Sixty years previously, the old pile had been torn down. Its possessor at that time, residing most of the year in foreign parts, had erected "Villa Baumgarten" on the opposite side of the estate, near the frequented road, in order that when in his own country he might "live among his kind," and the grandly-hewn blocks of granite from the old castle had been used in building the modern villa. The tower, with the ruin adjoining it, had been spared as an ornament to the park. It crowned an artificial mound covered with mossy turf. Its base was encircled by a wilderness of woodland shrubs and plants, hedge-roses and blackberry-vines crept in and out of the huge window-arches in the ruin and nestled among its fragments, while the wild hop clambered everywhere, covering the grim dark stones with a wealth of greenery.
This ruin, encircled by the water of the fosse, certainly answered the end for which it had first been preserved; but the succeeding generation, being of an eminently practical turn of mind, had drained the ditch, and planted vegetables in the damp, rich soil. The castle miller had declared upon purchasing the estate that this proceeding had been the only sensible thing done by its former possessors, and had appropriated this spot for his own special use. As a child, Kitty had taken great delight in the "little valley," as she called the former fosse. Of course, she then thought and knew nothing of how romance had been outraged in this transformation; she would while away hours wandering and plucking with Susie through the wilderness of bean-poles and young pea-vines, never dreaming that if the dam should suddenly give way the waters would overwhelm her with Susie and all the green luxuriance.
Now, on the fifth day after her arrival, she found herself for the first time in this retired part of the park, and paused bewildered. The hop-vines still wove a leafless net-work about the walls, and the turf on the mound showed as yet no green blade of grass, but the April sunshine lay broad and full upon the ruin-crowned hill, throwing it into picturesque relief against the background of dark firs that covered the mountain-range in the distance. There was no trace of fresh mortar on the walls to tell of modern repair, every stone was old, yet none were wanting; the high arched windows in the tower, formerly closed by decaying wooden shutters, gaped wide, and within the stone window-frames the sunny, tremulous air glittered as if some imprisoned sunbeam were weaving there a mysterious golden web. And fresh life was stirring about the ruined ancestral home of the Von Baumgartens; above the battlements of the tower white and coloured doves were wheeling in airy flight, and from the thicket beneath the ancient chestnuts which flanked it on the south, two roes came noiselessly and wandered about the hill. The "little valley" had vanished; and, as of old, a shining stream girdled the hill around, burying beneath its bubbling waters, as if no human hand had ever usurped its bed, all that had once bloomed and flourished there.
A bridge suspended by chains spanned the ditch, and, guarding its hither side, lay a huge bull-dog, his head on his forepaws, keeping a watchful eye upon the opposite bank of the stream.