"The hour may soon come, she said, and here it is already; it shall find me worthy of her who is purity and truth personified."
CHAPTER VIII.
"Must I really pay the driver twenty silver groschen for my small self and my small box?" asked Meta, bursting into Elsa's room.
"Good gracious, Meta!"
"First answer my question!"
"I do not know."
"Fräulein Elsa does not know either, August!" cried Meta into the passage; "so pay him what he asks. And now, you dear, darling, best of creatures, tell me if I am welcome!" Meta threw her arms round Elsa's neck, laughing and crying both at once. "You see, here I am at last, without any letter, after announcing my arrival fifty times. I could not bear it any longer. As often as papa said, 'You can have the horses tomorrow,' it never came to anything; for when to-morrow arrived the horses were always wanted for somebody or something else. So when he said it again this morning, as we were having our coffee, I said, 'No! not to-morrow, but to-day, immediately, on the spot, tout de suite!'--packed my box--that is why it is so small, my clothes had not come home from the wash--you must help me out--and here I am. And as for the cabman, that was only because my papa said: 'Take care you are not cheated!' and my mamma said: 'Cheated! nonsense! if only she has her wits about her!' And so on the way I vowed most solemnly to be desperately wise and not to disgrace you, and so I began at once with the cabman, you see." And Meta danced about the room and clasped Elsa round the neck again, and exclaimed: "This is the happiest night of my life, and if you send me away again early tomorrow morning it will still have been the happiest night!"
"And I hope that this evening will be followed by many happy ones for both of us. Oh! you do not know, dear Meta, how glad I am to see you!" cried Elsa, taking Meta in her arms and heartily returning her kiss.
"Now that I know that," said Meta, "I do not in the least want to know about anything else; that is to say I should like it dreadfully, but it is a point of honour with me now to be wise and discreet, you know; and you do not know that side of my character yet--neither do I myself. We must make acquaintance with me together, that will be awfully amusing. Good gracious! what nonsense I am talking just from sheer happiness!" Meta's presence was for the house in the Springbrunnenstrasse like a sunbeam penetrating a chink in the shutters of a dark room. It is not broad daylight, there are heavy shadows enough still; any one who happens to pass a looking-glass starts at the dim reflection of his own sad face; and people move carefully so as not to stumble, and speak with bated breath for fear of what may yet be hidden in the darkness. But still they move and speak; there is no longer the former silent darkness with all its terrors. Hardly a week had gone by, then, before the bright, talkative little girl had become the favourite of one and all. The General, who had almost entirely shut himself up in his own room lately, now spent a few hours every evening, as he used to do, with the rest of the family, unless, as had happened several times already, they were going out. He allowed himself to be instructed by Meta in agricultural matters, in which she declared herself to be an authority even with her papa--and that was saying a great deal--and permitted her to question him as to "what a battle really was like?" "Did Moltke sometimes yawn when it lasted too long?" and "Might a lieutenant wear varnished boots in battle?"
"It makes me shudder when I hear it all, Elsa; your friend is quite an enfant terrible," said Sidonie; but was calmed and consoled at once when Meta expressed the greatest interest in her "Court Etiquette," and declared that it was a very different sort of thing from Strummin etiquette. One found oneself always in the best society with highnesses and serene highnesses; and if one did sometimes come down to the backstairs, in her eyes a page of the backstairs was a person highly to be respected.