Elizabeth followed him with a beating heart. It was not the grandeur around her that oppressed her, it was the sensation of standing all alone in this new untried sphere. The servant conducted her through a long corridor, past the open doors of several apartments, which, furnished with extraordinary splendour, were heaped with such a profusion of elegant trifles that a simple child, unused to such luxury, would have supposed herself in a fancy-shop.
Her guide at last carefully opened a folding-door, and the young girl entered.
Near the windows, opposite Elizabeth, upon a couch lay a lady in apparently great suffering. Her head was resting upon a white pillow, and warm coverings were spread over her entire figure, which, in spite of its wrappings, betrayed decided embonpoint. In her hand was a vinaigrette.
She raised her head slightly, so that Elizabeth could see her face distinctly; it was round and pale, and at first sight by no means unprepossessing. Upon a closer view, the large blue eyes, that glittered beneath light eyelashes and elevated eyebrows as light, looked cold as ice, an expression in nowise softened by the supercilious lines about her mouth and nostrils, and by a broad, rather projecting chin.
"Oh, Fräulein, it is very kind of you to come!" cried the baroness in a weak voice, which nevertheless sounded harsh and cold, as she pointed to a lounge near her, and motioned to Elizabeth, who courtesied politely, to sit down. "I have begged my cousin," she continued, "to arrange matters with you in my room, as I am really too ill to take you to hers."
This reception was certainly courteous, although there was a considerable amount of condescension in the lady's tone and manner.
Elizabeth sat down, and was just about to reply to the question how she liked Thuringia, when the door was suddenly flung open, and a little girl of about eight years of age ran in, holding in her arms a pretty little dog, struggling and whining piteously.
"Ali is so naughty, mamma, he will not stay with me!" cried the child, breathlessly, as she threw the dog upon the carpet.
"You have probably been teasing the little thing again, my child," said her mother. "But I cannot have you here, Bella; you make so much noise, and I have a headache. Go away to your room."
"Oh, it's so stupid there! Miss Mertens has forbidden me to play with Ali, and gives me those tiresome old fables to learn; I cannot bear them."