"She ran up two flights of stairs to the garret," reiterated the small gentleman, emphatically, and with a look of great displeasure.
"I am sorry," said the superintendent, "but I cannot help it; I have to let the child do about as she pleases."
"Ah, but you can help it!" exclaimed the assessor. "You have only to assert your paternal authority. You can say to your daughter that it is your desire and command--"
"Nothing could induce me to say any such thing," interrupted the superintendent. "I place no hindrance in the way of your suit. I believe that you have a sincere affection for my daughter, and I have nothing against you or your position and prospects. But you must win the girl's consent; I shall not interfere. If she voluntarily accepts you, I shall not object to you as a son-in-law; but, honestly, I do not think your prospects are very flattering."
"There you are in an error, Herr Frank,--most decidedly so. I know that your daughter often treats me coldly and indifferently, but I understand all this; it is nothing but the prudery usual to young girls. They want to be wooed long and ardently; they strive by their reserve and coyness to make the prize more desirable. I have made these matters a profound study. The young lady's indifference is only seeming; I am sure of success."
"I am happy to hear it," returned Herr Frank, as the object of the conversation entered the room bringing a lamp.
Margaret Frank--or Gretchen, as every one called her excepting the formal assessor--was about twenty years old. She was a beauty of no delicate, ideal type, but a perfect picture of youth and health. Her form was stately and robust like her father's, and her fresh, rosy face, clear blue eyes, and the blonde braids arranged in a coronet above her smooth, white forehead, made her so altogether lovely, that we may well understand the assessor's forgetfulness of that offensive flight up the garret-stairs, and his eagerness to salute his chosen one.
"Good evening, Herr Assessor," Gretchen said, coldly, in response to the gentleman's warm greeting. "Then it was you who drove through the gate a little while ago? I did not imagine it could be you again, for you were here only last Sunday."
The assessor thought proper not to answer these last words. "I come here to-day upon official business," he said. "An affair of great importance has been intrusted to me, and will detain me some days in this neighborhood; I have therefore taken the liberty of accepting your father's hospitality. We who are connected with the government are having serious times now, Fräulein Margaret. We find everywhere secret intrigues and revolutionary movements; the whole province seems involved in one great conspiracy, and Villica is in fact the headquarters of all sorts of intrigue."
"And the most favorable place for operations," added Frank. "The Nordeck estates are surrounded by forests, and all the foresters and their satellites are at the beck of the princess who rules here. Strictly as the boundary is watched, people pass too and fro every night, and whoever comes finds the doors of Villica Castle wide open."