But she refused. “Your father is not kindly disposed towards us, mamma said, and that’s why you may not come for a visit to Helenenthal. Your father would perhaps send me away.”
He replied, with a deep blush, “My father would not do that,” and felt much ashamed.
She cast a glance towards the Haidehof, which lay scarcely a hundred yards from the road. The red fence shone in the sunshine, and even the gray half-ruined barns looked more cheerful than usual.
“Your house looks very nice,” she said, shading her eyes with her left hand.
“Oh yes,” he answered, his heart swelling with pride, “and there is an owl nailed to the door of one of the sheds. But it shall become much nicer still,” he added after a little while, seriously, “only let me begin to rule.” And then he set to work to explain to her all his plans for the future. She listened attentively, but when he had finished she said again,
“I am tired—I must rest;” and she wanted to sit down on the edge of the ditch.
“Not here in the blazing sun,” he cautioned her; “we’ll look out for the first juniper-bush we can find.”
She gave him her hand, and let him drag her wearily over the heath, which undulated with molehills like the waves on a lake, and near the edge of the wood there were some solitary juniper-bushes, which stood out like a group of black dwarfs above the level plain.
Under the first of these bushes she cowered down, so that its shadow almost entirely shrouded her slight, delicate figure.
“Here is just room enough for your head,” she said, pointing to a mole-hill which was just within the range of shade.