Fräulein Duff stepped a pace backward, shaded her eyes from the rays of the evening sun with her transparent hand, and said with a coquettish smile:
"Carlos, you are playing false. Confess now you want to escape me by this serpentine turning. There is but one here to whom this description applies, but he is a giant--in intellect! It is immense--sublime! it really overcame me! And you call such a giant your friend, and yet complain that you are in a prison! Oh, my dear friend, who would not willingly exchange his freedom for your imprisonment, to win such a friend as this!"
Fräulein Duff pressed her handkerchief to her eyelids, and then gave a loud shriek as she felt herself seized fast from behind, and turning saw Hermine's little spaniel, who had fastened his sharp teeth in the skirt of her dress, and looked at her with a malevolent expression in his great black eyes. At the same moment the whole company came up, so that the governess had suddenly quite a concourse of spectators to her combat with the little long-haired monster. I endeavored to release her, and only made matters worse; Zerlina would not let go, and shook and tore with all her strength; the boys pretended to help me, and secretly urged her on; no one could keep from laughing, and the commerzienrath literally roared. Nothing remained for Fräulein Duff, under these circumstances, but to swoon away, and fall into the arms of Doctor Snellius, who just then came up, attracted by the noise.
"Do not be alarmed, ladies and gentlemen," said the commerzienrath, "this happens three times every day."
"Barbarian!" murmured the fainting damsel, with pale lips, and raised herself from the arms of the doctor, who, despite the sublimity attributed to him, wore at this moment a very sheepish look. Fräulein Duff strove to cast, through the tears that dimmed her water-blue eyes, an annihilating look at the mocker, declined the doctor's proffered arm with the words, "I thank you, but I need no assistance to the house," and hastened away, holding her handkerchief to her face, while Zerlina capered around her little mistress with joyous barkings and triumphant flourishings of her bushy tail.
"I think she will lose her wits one of these days," said the commerzienrath, as a sort of explanation of the scene which had just occurred.
"So much the more should you spare her, especially in the presence of others," said the superintendent.
I had seized this opportunity to make my escape from the company, and was wandering about in the farther walks of the garden, when I saw Paula and Hermine approaching at a little distance. Paula had laid her hand on the little maid's shoulder, who, in her turn, had wound one arm round her cousin's waist. Hermine was looking up in Paula's face, and speaking with great animation, while Paula smiled in a friendly manner, and said from time to time something which seemed to call forth vehement opposition from the little maid.
The lovely child of ten years, with her glossy brown hair, and her great sparkling blue eyes, her bright little face beaming with animation, and the slender maiden of fifteen, with the gentle smile on her delicate lips--both these beautiful figures illuminated by the ruddy glow of an autumn sunset--how often has this picture recurred to my memory in later years!
And now they caught sight of me. I heard Paula say: "Ask him then yourself," and Hermine answered, "And so I will!"