"Oh, mercy!" cried the little maid again. "How it frightened me!"
"What frightened you, ma chère!" asked another voice. The voice was extremely thin, and so was the lady to whom it belonged, and who had just come out of the deck-cabin. So also was the worn dress of changeable silk that fluttered about her figure, and the reddish locks that drooped on each side of her pale face.
This lady was Fräulein Amalie Duff, and the little maid with the cornflower eyes and ribbons was her pupil, Hermine Streber, the commerzienrath's only child. Of course I knew them both, as indeed I was pretty well acquainted with everybody in our little town, as soon as they were out of long-clothes; and they might well have known me, for I had been two or three times with Arthur in his uncle's large garden at the town-gate, and a fortnight before had even had the honor to swing the little Hermine in the great wooden swing, from which, if you swung high enough, you could catch a sight of the sea through the tops of the trees. Fräulein Duff, moreover, was a native of the little Saxon town which was the birthplace of my parents; and when she arrived, some months before, she brought various messages and greetings from the old home, which unhappily came too late for my good mother, who had been resting in the churchyard for fifteen years. She had frequently condescended indeed no longer ago than the afternoon of the swinging to bestow her instructive conversation upon me; but she was very near-sighted, and I could not take it amiss that she applied her gold double eye-glass to her pale eyes, and with a sweeping reverence, which in the dancing-school is called, I believe, grand compliment, inquired: "Whom have I the honor to----?"
I introduced myself.
CHAPTER II.
"O ciel!" cried Fräulein Duff, "mon jeune compatriote! A thousand pardons!--my near-sightedness! How is your respected father, and your amiable mother? Dear me! how confused I am! But your sudden appearance in this retired corner of the world has quite unnerved me. I was about to say--the company are asking for you. How did you manage to elude observation?--they are looking for you everywhere."
"Yet I might have been found easily enough," I said, probably with a touch of wounded pride in the tone, which did not escape the quick ear of Fräulein Duff.
"Ah, yes," she said, conveying a look of intelligence into her pale eyes. "'Who solace seeks in solitude'--alas! too true.
"'For gold all are longing,
Round gold all are thronging--'"
"Not so wild, ma chère! The dreadful creature will tear your dress!"