Gold Elsie

by E. Marlitt

"Halloa!" cried the forester with a laugh of surprise. "Who is that quarrelling with me in the corner of the carriage? Come out instantly, little one."

"I, little? Well, sir, you will be finely surprised when I do get out and you see what a tall, stately maiden I am!"

With these words Elizabeth sprang down from the high carriage and stood on tiptoe, drawing herself up to her full height beside him. But although her slender, graceful figure was something above middle size, she seemed at this moment like a pretty king-bird measuring itself with an eagle.

"Look," she said, in a rather disappointed tone, "I am nearly up to your shoulder, and that is more than tall enough for a respectable girl."

Her uncle, holding himself as erect as possible, looked down upon her with a roguish smile of great self-satisfaction for a moment, then suddenly picked her up in his arms as though she had been a feather, and amid the laughter of the others carried her into the house, calling in a voice of thunder—

"Sabina, Sabina, come here, and I will show you how the wrens look in B——."

He put his terrified burden down in the hall as gently and carefully as though he were handling some brittle plaything, took her head tenderly between his large hands, kissed her forehead again and again, and said, "That such a queen of Liliput, such a moonshine elf, should dream of being as large as her tall uncle! But, forest fairy as you are, you know all about the sun, for your head is covered with its beams."

As she was carried into the house upon her uncle's arm the girl's hat had fallen from her head, revealing a mass of fair hair, the golden colour of which was all the more remarkable as her delicately pencilled eyebrows and long lashes were coal black.

In the mean while an old woman entered from a side door, and at the head of the first flight of stairs several boyish faces appeared, which, however, vanished as soon as they found themselves perceived by the forester. "Oh, you need not run away," he cried, laughing. "I have seen you peeping. They are my assistants," he turned to his brother; "the fellows are as curious as sparrows, and to-day I really cannot blame them," and he glanced archly at Elizabeth, who, standing aside, was binding her loosened braids around her head. Then he took the old woman by the hand and presented her, with an air of comical solemnity: "Fräulein Sabina Holzin, Minister of the Interior to the Forest Lodge, High Constable in all stable and farm affairs, and to every one therein concerned, and, lastly, absolute monarch in the kitchen department. While she is putting the dinner on the table do just as she tells you, and all will go well with you; but, if she begins with her stock of old proverbs and ghost stories, get out of her way as quickly as possible, for there is no end to them. And now,"—he turned to the smiling old woman, who was a miracle of ugliness, and who yet prepossessed all in her favour by her honest eyes, by an expression of roguery and fun that lighted up her face, and especially by the spotless cleanliness of her attire,—"now bring us as quickly as you can whatever pantry and cellar will afford: I know you baked our Whitsuntide cakes earlier than usual, that our travellers might have something to refresh them after their fatigue."

With these words he opened the door opposite to the one from the kitchen through which the old woman disappeared, and showed his guests into a large apartment with bow-windows. But Elizabeth lingered behind, looking through the door which led into the court-yard, for, between the white picket fences which shut in the feathered tribes on each side of the enclosure, she saw gay beds of flowers, while three or four late-blossoming apple trees stretched their rosy bloom-laden branches over one corner of the space. The garden was large, climbing a short distance up the mountain side by terraces, and even enclosing within its realm a beautiful group of old beeches, outlying members of the forest. While Elizabeth, entranced, stood thus in the hall, the door of a side wing of the house opened and a young girl stepped out into the court-yard. She was strikingly beautiful, although her figure was rather diminutive, a defect for which nature had seemed to wish to indemnify her by gifting her with a pair of large eyes that glowed like dazzling black suns. Her abundant dark hair was arranged evidently with an eye to coquettish effect, and several charmingly curled locks had escaped just above the pale forehead. Her dress, too, although of simple material, betrayed in its arrangement the greatest care, and the observer could not but suspect that the skirt was so artistically looped not merely that the hem might be kept from the dust, but also with an eye to the neat little boot which it revealed, and which certainly was not made to be hidden beneath the heavy woollen stuff of the dress.