[A MOUNTAIN RAMBLE.]
Autumn this year had donned the aspect of a late summer. The days, with but few exceptions, were sunny and clear, the air was mild, and the mountains stood revealed in all their rarest beauty.
The inmates of the Nordheim villa had prolonged their stay, which had been at first arranged for only the summer months, into October. They had been induced to do this, first out of consideration for Alice's health, and then in accordance with Erna's wish to spend as long a time as was possible among her beloved mountains. Since she had been betrothed to Waltenberg her position in the household had undergone a change; Frau von Lasberg no longer permitted herself to find fault with her, and the president was always ready to forestall his niece's wishes. Waltenberg himself, who disliked a city life with its conventionalities and restraints, was glad to be rid of it, and the Baroness alone sighed about the 'endless exile,' and comforted herself with the prospect of a winter more than usually gay. Now that Erna was also betrothed and that Elmhorst would be in the capital during the winter months, after his labours as engineer among the mountains were at an end, the Nordheim mansion would surely justify its reputation. There would doubtless be a series of entertainments in honour of the young couples, and Frau von Lasberg revelled in the contemplation of the prominent part it would be hers to play.
Erna and Alice were sitting on the veranda of the villa, and the gay chatter heard thence absolutely came from the lips of Alice Nordheim. There was not a vestige of the air of indifference with which she used to speak formerly. The change that had taken place in her bordered on the miraculous: the sickly pallor the weary movements, the fatigued, unsympathetic expression, had all vanished; the cheeks were rosy, the eyes bright. Whether it were owing to the mountain-air which blew here so pure and fresh, or to the treatment of the young physician, the fact was that in a few months the girl had blossomed forth like some flower which, fading and sickly in the shade, expands into tender beauty in the clear, warm sunshine.
"I wonder where Herr Waltenberg is?" she was just saying. "He is usually here before this time."
"Ernst wrote me that he should be rather late today, since he meant to bring us a surprise from Heilborn," Erna replied. She was seated at her drawing, from which she did not look up, nor did she evince the slightest interest in the promised surprise.
"'Tis strange that he should write to you so often, when he sees you every day," remarked Alice, who was quite unused to such attentions from her own lover. "And then he fairly overwhelms you with flowers, for which, it seems to me, you are not half grateful enough."
"I am afraid that is Ernst's own fault," was the quiet reply. "He spoils me, and I am too ready to be spoiled."
"Yes, there is something exaggerated in his manner of wooing," Alice interposed. "His love seems to me like a fire, which burns rather than illumines."
"His is an unusual nature," said Erna. "He must not be judged by the standard we apply to others. Believe me, Alice, much, nay, everything, can be endured in the consciousness that one is supremely and ardently beloved."