"Dear Toni, do not think hard of me," he began hesitatingly; "it was so hot and your playing had something so pacifying."
Toni turned. That this march, with her playing of it, should be pacifying was new to her; but when she saw the crushed mien of her betrothed, who stood like a prisoner before her, her good nature conquered, and she held out her hand.
"No, I am not angry with you, Willy," she said cordially. "I do not care either for the stupid music. We will do something more sensible when we are at Burgsdorf."
"Yes, that we will," exclaimed Willy, joyfully pressing the offered hand. He had not yet aspired to even a kiss upon the hand. "You are so good, Toni."
When Frau von Eschenhagen entered soon afterward, she found the couple in perfect harmony, engaged in a highly interesting conversation about dairy affairs, which were somewhat different in the two localities of Burgsdorf and Furstenstein. This was a subject over which Willy did not fall asleep, and his mother congratulated herself secretly upon this splendid daughter-in-law, who showed no inconvenient sensitiveness.
The young man found opportunity almost directly to prove himself grateful for the indulgence of his betrothed. Toni complained that a package which she had ordered and which was needed for the supper table had not yet come. It had arrived safely at the post office, but, it seemed, with a wrong address, and had not been delivered to the messenger, who in the meantime had been dispatched elsewhere. No other servant was at liberty to go, and the time of need for it was drawing near. Willibald hastened to offer his services, which were joyfully accepted by his fiancée.
CHAPTER XIV.
Waldhofen was the most important village of the vicinity, but still only a small place. It was about half an hour's distance from Furstenstein and formed a kind of centre for all the scattered villages and hamlets of the Wald.
It looked very desolate and forlorn during the afternoon hours, when nobody was on the streets; so thought Herr von Eschenhagen as he walked across the market place, where the post office was situated.
He finished the errand which had brought him to Waldhofen, and found a man to carry the parcel to the castle. Then, since the streets of the quiet little place offered no diversion, he turned into a lane which led to the high road behind the gardens of the houses.