"Ah, yes indeed, Herr Forester!" replied the old woman, who was just putting a dish upon the table. "When I think of poor Schneider,—she is the widow of a day-labourer in the village," she said, turning to the others; "she always worked hard to make both ends meet, and no one could say a word against her, but she had four children to feed, and lived from hand to mouth. And matters went badly with her last harvest, and she had nothing to give her children to eat, so she was driven to do what was wrong, and took an apron full of potatoes from a splendid field belonging to the castle. But the overseer, Linke, who happened to be standing behind a tree not far off, saw her, sprang out upon her instantly, and knocked her down. Even if he had stopped there 'twould not have been so bad, but he kicked her brutally as she lay upon the ground. I had been to Lindhof, and as I was passing beneath the cherry trees near the village, on my way home, I saw some one lying upon the ground,—it was the poor woman, bleeding profusely, and with not a soul near her. She could not move, so I called some people, who helped me to carry her home. The Herr Forester was absent, but I was sure of his permission, and so I nursed and tended her as well as I could. The people in the village were furious at the overseer,—but what could they do? There was some talk of arresting him, but it all came to nothing. Linke is one of the saints, he is the baroness' right-hand man, turns up his eyes, and does everything in the name of the Lord. It must never get abroad that such a pious man could behave so inhumanly, and so the baroness drove to town every day, and was wonderfully condescending, and, in short, the story was hushed up, and the poor woman, who has never entirely recovered, had to get along as best she might, for neither she nor her children ever had a bite or a drop from the castle all the while that she was sick. Ah! yes, the overseer and the baroness' old waiting-maid make a hard time of it for the poor people, they keep a close watch to see who misses prayers or chapel over there, and they have been the means of depriving many an honest man of work at the castle."
"Don't say any more about it," said the forester. "I cannot relish my food when I think of these things, and our pleasant Sunday, to which I look forward all the week, must have no other shadows upon it than those cast by the white, fleecy clouds up there."
As soon as the meal was concluded the forester's modest little equipage made its appearance. He handed in Elizabeth, and seated himself by her side. As she nodded a farewell to the others, she glanced up at the house, and started with actual terror at the eyes which were gazing down upon her from a window in the upper story. 'Tis true, the head disappeared instantly, but Elizabeth had time to recognize the mute Bertha, and to convince herself that she was the object of that look of rage and hate, although she could not divine its cause. Until now Bertha had withdrawn herself entirely from all intercourse with the Ferber family. She never appeared when Elizabeth was at the Lodge. She took her Sunday dinner alone in her own room, and the forester allowed her to please herself in the matter. He had no desire to establish any relation between the two girls.
Frau Ferber had once made an attempt to address the unfortunate girl. Her gentle feminine nature could not believe that mere wilfulness was the spring of Bertha's extraordinary behaviour. She suspected the existence of some deeper cause, perhaps of some secret grief, which made her indifferent to her surroundings, or rendered her so irritable that she chose to remain silent rather than be engaged in perpetual strife. A gentle word from her, a kindly advance on her side, would, she hoped, unseal Bertha's lips; but she succeeded no better than Elizabeth had done. She was even so outraged by the girl's manner that she strictly forbade all further attempt at intercourse with her upon Elizabeth's part.
After a charming drive, Elizabeth and her uncle reached their destination.
L—— was certainly a small town, and bore the unmistakable impress of a small town, although the court resided there from the appearance of the first primrose to the fall of the last autumn leaf, and its inhabitants took the greatest pains to adapt themselves, in their social life, to the manners and customs of a large Capital. But the loud, uneasy creaking of the machinery of a most complicated domestic economy could not be drowned by the rustle of the most flowing and elegant crinoline. The honest townsfolk, who left their dwellings, with doors wide open, in perfect safety, to earn their daily bread in the little uneven streets, or in the strips of meadow land between their houses, fell as far short of being peacocks as did the ducks, that daily delighted to swim in the little brook running directly through the town, of becoming stately swans.
The situation of the place was undeniably delightful. In the centre of a not very spacious valley, nestled at the foot of an eminence whose summit was crowned by the royal castle and domain, it lay buried in the dark, rich green of avenues of lindens, and surrounded in spring by the lovely blossoms of countless orchards.
The forester took Elizabeth to the house of an assessor, one of his friends. She was to wait for him there until he had concluded his business. Although made cordially welcome by the lady of the house, she would gladly have turned round and followed her retreating uncle,—for she found herself, to her vexation, in the midst of a large assemblage of ladies. Her hostess informed her that, in honour of her husband's birthday, she had gotten up a set of tableaux from mythology, to rehearse which was the cause of the present gathering. At the coffee-table, in a pleasantly-furnished apartment, eight or ten ladies were seated, already dressed in mythological costume, and upon the arrival of the stranger, they measured her with glances that seemed to penetrate every plait and fold of her simple attire.
All the goddesses, without exception, had submitted themselves, in their costume, to the sceptre of the royal fair of France, and wore their white robes over abundant crinoline, which was then the fashion, "For," said Ceres, a trig little blonde, upon whose flushed brow a whole harvest was waving, "one looks so forlorn without crinoline;" and how else could her dress have supported the huge bunches of wheat ears and red poppies with which it was adorned? How Dame Ceres had managed this difficulty in her days of splendour was a problem which no one took the pains to solve.
Perhaps the artificial light of the evening would be favourable to the remarkable arrangement of some of the toilets, but now the bright sunlight illuminated and revealed with cruel sincerity every pasted bit of gold-paper, every paper-muslin scarf that should have represented satin, and every basting stitch in the improvised tunics. Several old-fashioned paste shoe-buckles glittered in the girdle of Venus; and the silver crescent upon the forehead of Diana showed the blotting-paper behind it at every movement of the head which it adorned.