"That is very true," said Melitta; "but----"
"We had, if I am not mistaken, agreed to avoid all discussion on the subject of education," said the baroness, with a smile of superiority. "I know what I am doing, and I hope, with the help of God, to carry it out successfully."
"By the way, did I tell you that I mean to send my Julius, a few days hence, to the college at Grunwald?"
"What a venture again!" replied the baroness. "That is the kind of public education, as they call it, which Baron Oldenburg enjoyed when he was young, and you see what the results are. To be sure, private tutors have their dark sides also."
"You have a new one, I believe?" said Melitta, who had risen and was leaning against the door-frame. "How is he?"
The baroness shrugged her shoulders.
"But what a question, to be sure," said Melitta, laughing. "He is probably like all the rest: terribly learned, awkward, pedantic, a bore. Bemperlein, Bauer--they are all after the same pattern. I should know a tutor at a hundred yards. Ah! who is that young man, crossing the lawn there with Bruno?"
The question remained unanswered, for at that moment Mademoiselle Marguerite entered the room, and the baroness rose to give her some orders. Melitta turned round, but the baroness had left the room with the words, "Pray excuse me!" Melitta was alone, and had to find the answer to her question for herself. She drew a little back behind the door and examined the form of the unknown young man.
CHAPTER VII.
Oswald and Bruno had stepped forth from the trees which surrounded the lawn, just opposite to the château. His right arm was resting on the boy's shoulder, who again had put his arm round Oswald's waist, and looked smilingly up into the face of the young man. They were eagerly talking to each other, and stopped when they had advanced a few steps on the lawn. Oswald pointed in the direction from which they had come, and Bruno ran back into the wood. The young man stood waiting for his return, and whisked off, to pass his time, the heads of some grasses which had shot up too high. He had no suspicion that, at a little distance from him, a pair of beautiful sharp eyes were carefully examining every feature in his face and watching every motion.