"Oh, you may be sure of that!" said Max, who could not refrain from a furtive glance at Alide. "He was delighted with his evening here, and he pulled a wry face at having to return to the city."
"It seems strange that he was obliged to leave so suddenly," said Madame Duroc: "he certainly could not have received news from town so early."
"No, madame," stammered Max; "but last night—no, not last night—in fact, though he is a good fellow, to tell you the truth, he is something of a madcap. Indeed, he is only a boy in years, and he rode over here for a holiday, without remembering an important business engagement for this morning in town. I am quite sure he will return soon and make you his own excuses."
No further attention was paid to the freak so naturally accounted for, while the family conversation flowed on in its ordinary channels. How intolerably flat it was to poor Alide! Her little romance was shattered to bits by this unexpected incident; she was sure he would never come back. Now, more than ever, he was a prince in disguise, and, since he had been with her the greater part of the evening, the modest girl accused herself of a thousand blunders that must have driven him away. How she had bored him with her foolish confidences about her dull village circle! how ungainly he must have found her rustic appearance and manner! She choked a sigh, and tried to interest herself again in the trivial events of her home-life. After breakfast Rahel proposed a walk, and the two sisters fetched their hats and strolled with Waldstein across the meadows. Alide almost forgot to be melancholy in the sunshine of the autumn fields. Ah, how easily at this early period could she have succeeded in what seemed to her the heroic endeavor to banish all recollection of the wonderful stranger! She called Goetz from his kennel, and in a little while she was bounding with the dog, laughing and singing, far ahead of Max and Rahel, or gayly chatting alongside of them.
There are women who especially please us in a room; others who look better in the open air. Alide belonged to the latter. Her whole nature, her form, never appeared more charming than when she moved along an elevated footpath. The grace of her deportment seemed to vie with the flowery earth, and the indestructible cheerfulness of her countenance with the blue sky. In walks she floated about, an animating spirit, and knew how to supply the gaps which might arise here and there. The lightness of her movements we have already commended, and she was most graceful when she ran. As the deer seems just to fulfil its destination when it lightly flies over the sprouting corn, so did her peculiar nature seem most plainly to express itself when she ran with light steps over mead and furrow, to seek something which had been lost, to summon a distant couple, or to order something necessary. On these occasions she was never out of breath, and always kept her equilibrium.
"Who is this coming towards us with a white thing in his hands?" asked Max.
"Oh, that is Fritz, the innkeeper's son," said Rahel, drawing her eyelids together coquettishly. "But what can he be running across the meadows with?"
As he drew near, Alide called out, "Fritz, what are you bringing there?"
He took off his hat in such a manner that it entirely concealed his face, and, without speaking, held up a loaded napkin high in the air.
"A christening-cake!" cried Alide. "How is your sister?"