“I must also thank you,” said she, “for your kindness toward the poor boy!” She quickly placed the lights on the table, and left the room with a gentle glance.
“She is beautiful, very beautiful!” exclaimed Wilhelm. “That was really quite a pleasant meeting.”
“Is it then you, Herr Baron, who honor me thus?” cried the host, stepping in—an elderly man with a jovial countenance. “Yes, the Baron will doubtless visit his dear relations in hunch? It is now some little time since you were there.”
“This is our host!” said Wilhelm to Otto. “He and his wife were born upon my parent’s estate.”
“Yes,” said the host, “in my youth I have shot many a snipe and wild duck with the Herr Baron’s father. But Eva should spread the table; the gentlemen will certainly take supper, and a glass of good punch the Herr Baron will certainly not despise, if he is like his blessed father.”
The young girl spread the cloth in an adjoining room.
“She is pretty!” Wilhelm whispered to the old man.
“And just as pious and innocent as she is pretty!” returned he; “and that is saying much, as she is a poor girl, and from Copenhagen. She is of good service to us, and my wife says Eva shall not leave us until she is well married.”
Wilhelm invited the host to join them at a glass. The old man became more animated, and now confided to him, half mysteriously, what made Eva so honorable in the eyes of his wife, and what was, indeed, really very nice of her. “My old woman,” said he, “was in Copenhagen, in search of a waiting-girl. Yes, there are enough to be had, and they are fine girls; but mother has her own thoughts and opinions: she has good eyes—that she has! Now, there came many, and among others Eva; but, good Lord! she was very poorly clad, and she looked feeble and weak, and what service could one get out of her! But she had a good countenance, and the poor girl wept and besought mother to take her, for she was not comfortable at home, and would not remain at Copenhagen. Now, mother knows how to make use of her words: it is unfortunate that she is not at home to-night; how pleased she would have been to see the Herr Baron! Yes, what I would say is, she so twisted her words about, that Eva confessed to her why she wished to leave home. You see the girl is petty; and the young gallant gentlemen of Copenhagen had remarked her smooth face,—and not alone the young, but the old ones also! So an old gentleman—I could easily name him, but that has nothing to do with the affair—a very distinguished man in the city, who has, besides, a wife and children, had said all sorts of things to her parents; and, as eight hundred dollars is a deal of money to poor people, one can excuse them: but Eva wept, and said she would rather spring into the castle-ditch. They represented all sorts of things to the poor girl; she heard of the service out here with us. She wept, kissed my old woman’s hand, and thus came to us; and since then we have had a deal of service from Eva, and joy also!”
Some minutes after Eva stepped in, Otto’s eye rested with a melancholy expression upon the beautiful form: never had he before so gazed upon a woman. Her countenance was extraordinarily fine, her nose and forehead nobly formed, the eyebrows dark, and in the dark-blue eyes lay something pensive, yet happy: one might employ the Homeric expression, “smiling through tears,” to describe this look. She announced that the carriage was ready.