LOVE'S SPRINGTIDE
'A queenly rose of sound, with tune for scent;
A pause of shadow in a day of heat;
A voice to make God weak as man,
And at its pleadings take away the ban
'Neath which so long our spirits have been bent—
A voice to make death tender and life sweet!'
Philip Bourke Marston.
The Hofmarshall's house stood in the 'Graben,' a broad road which ran proudly past the old town ending at the ducal gardens on the west, while to the east began the fields and vineyards leading up to the royal hunting forest, the Rothwald. Stafforth's house was a fine stone building decorated with rococo masks. To the back lay a beautiful garden laid out on a plan of M. Lenôtre's, from whose book of Jardins Mignons Stafforth had selected it. On the morning after the theatricals Wilhelmine was seated on one of the garden benches, and though her eyes were fixed on the pages of a French translation of Barclay's satirical novel Argenis, her thoughts were busy with the events of the previous evening. Her reverie was interrupted by Madame de Ruth who arrived, as usual, in a cloud of her own words. She embraced Wilhelmine affectionately, exclaiming: 'Never was there so great a victory! One battle and the country is ours! The hero at your feet, my dear! Did I not say that you had a great future before you? Ah! the Geyling! Ha! ha! ha! what a face she made when his Highness led you out on to the balcony, and I asked her if she thought it convenable for you! Ha! ha! ha! she looked sour indeed, and she screeched at me in her peahen voice: "Mademoiselle de Grävenitz seems to be a lady of experience; she can guard her own young virtue, I suppose!" "'Tis not her virtue, Madame," I said, with a surprised look and the prim manner of a Pietist, "I know that is safe with so devoted a husband as Serenissimus, but I fear for her reputation! Ah! Madame, the evil tongues of older women! and already no one here to-night can speak of ought save Mademoiselle. But I assure you the theatricals are not even mentioned, Madame! They can remember nothing save the Envoi and its singer." O Wilhelmine! if you could have seen her face! I suffer, I expire with laughter, when I think of it.' And Madame de Ruth laughed till she really was almost suffocated, and was obliged to hold her hands over her heaving sides.
Wilhelmine leaned her head on her hands. 'Poor Madame de Geyling!' she said in a musing tone.