"Now, every one must eat and drink in the courtyard. It is the young people's turn to be pleased. It must never be said that my friends, after giving me so much pleasure, went away with empty mouths." Madame von Wendenstein gave her eldest daughter a sign, and soon all the servants in the house were hastily carrying tables, white cloths, plates, jugs, and bottles into the courtyard.
The schoolmaster, however, whispered something to old Deyke, who said, "Herr President, the schoolmaster begs your kind entertainment may be put off until the other songs are sung, as he fears the voices will not be in such good order afterwards!"
"Are you going to sing to us again?" cried the president, with pleasure. "Pray go on then, Herr Niemeyer. Sit down with us, my dear Deyke, and let us drink a glass to old times!"
He had some arm-chairs rolled into the middle of the room, and made the old peasant sit with the pastor and himself. The lieutenant fetched some cigars; the eldest son filled the glasses. The old peasant moistened his cigar with his lips, and smoked it with carefully screwed-up mouth. He knocked his glass against the president's and the pastor's, half emptied it, with a satisfied nod at its contents; then he sat very upright on his chair, with a look which showed he was sensible what a high honour it was to sit in such company, as well as the conviction that he was quite the man on whom such honour should fall.
The schoolmaster and young Deyke had hastened out again, and soon the simple but beautiful volkslied of the country commenced.
Madame von Wendenstein returned to her place on the sofa, and listened thoughtfully to the melodious sounds; her eldest son stepped, with Herr von Bergfeld, into a window-niche; the president's youngest daughter had followed her sister; the lieutenant walked up and down the room, listening to the singing with some impatience; for he longed to go out to the young peasants, whom he had known from childhood, and joke and laugh with them.
The pastor's daughter, forsaken by her young friends, stepped out on to the terrace. She leant against the stone balustrade and looked up at the moon; its silvery rays fell on her thoughtful, beautiful face, and lighted up her large clear eyes.
After the lieutenant had paced up and down the room several times, he, too, went on to the terrace. He breathed in the fresh evening air, looked at the well-known plain below as it lay in the moonlight, and then perceived the young girl, whom he hastened to join.
"Are you indulging in romantic dreams in the moonlight, Miss Helena?" he cried, jokingly. "May I share them, or is it needful to be quite alone?"
"The moon always makes me come out, whether I will or not," said Helena, "and the singing sounds even better here. But I was dreaming a little," she said, laughingly, as she raised herself from the stone balustrade; "my thoughts were far away from here, up in the clouds," and she pointed with her hand to a black bank of clouds, stretching from the horizon towards the moon, whose light touched their edges with silver. They looked like a black mantle with a brilliant hem.