"How pretty you are," said Meta; "much prettier even than you were yesterday evening. Did your dream give you such rosy cheeks, or is it the morning glow!"
"The morning glow," said Elsa. "How I should like to see the sun rise! I have never yet seen it."
"No!" cried Meta, clasping her hands together; "never yet seen the sun rise! Is it possible! Oh, you town people! Come! it never rises more beautifully than here at Golmberg, but we must make haste. I am half-dressed already. I will come and help you directly."
Meta came back in a few minutes and began to help Elsa to dress.
"I was born to be a lady's-maid," said she. "Will you have me? I will dress and undress you all day long, and be as faithful as a lapdog to you; for one's heart must cling to something, you know, and my heart has nothing now to cling to, you know. There now, just a veil over your beautiful hair, and this lovely shawl round you--you will want them; it will be quite cold enough."
But a soft warm air met them as they stepped from the glass door on to the little balcony, from which a small iron staircase led down into a strip of garden which had been laid out between the two wings of the building.
"The gate is never locked," said Meta; "we can get straight into the forest, you know, and be there in five minutes; but we must make haste if we want to see anything."
She dragged her faintly-resisting companion quickly on. "Don't be afraid," she cried, "I know every step of the way; we shall not meet a soul, at the utmost only a roedeer--look!"
She held Elsa back by the arm and pointed to the broad path.
There stood a deer not a hundred yards from them. It seemed to see nothing alarming in their two figures, but bent its delicate head, which it had raised for a moment, and quietly went on grazing.