And when the urn was on the table, singing its usual little domestic tune, Ottmar said--
"I don't think I could have a better opportunity for reading you a tale which I wrote a long while ago, and which happens to begin with tea-drinking. I mention, to begin with, that it is in Cyprian's style."
Ottmar read--
[THE UNCANNY GUEST].
A storm was raging through the heavens, announcing the coming of winter, whirling black clouds on its wings, which dashed down hissing, rattling squall-showers of rain and hail.
"Nobody will come to-night," said Madame von G. to her daughter Angelica, as the clock struck seven. "They would never venture out in such weather. If your father were but home!"
Almost as she was speaking, in came Captain Moritz von E. (a cavalry officer), followed by a young Barrister, whose brilliant and inexhaustible fund of humour and wit was the life and soul of the circle which was accustomed to assemble every Thursday evening in Colonel von G.'s house. So that, as Angelica said, there was little cause to be sorry that the less intimate members of the circle were away, seeing that the more welcome ones had come.
It felt very chilly in the drawing-room. The lady of the house had had a fire lighted, and the tea-table brought.
"I am sure," she said, "that you two gentlemen, who have been so courageous as to come to see us tonight through such a storm, can never be content with our wretched tea. Mademoiselle Marguerite shall make you a brew of that good, northern beverage which can keep any sort of weather out." Marguerite--a young French lady, who was "companion" to Angelica, for the sake of her language, and other lady-like accomplishments, but who was only about her own age, or barely more--came, and performed the duty thus entrusted to her. So the punch steamed, while the fire sparkled and blazed; and the company sate down round the little tea-table.
A shiver suddenly passed through them--through each and all of them; and they felt chilled. Though they had been talking merrily before they sat down, there fell now upon them a momentary silence, during which the strange voices which the storm had called into life in the chimney whistled and howled with marvellous distinctness.