But what it meant by saying that it possessed the greatest treasure Fritz did not learn; for when he asked the question, the only sound he heard was one that came up to him from out of the Marienthal—an echo of his own words, “the greatest treasure.”
IV.
atrina had followed her mother into the great, vaultlike hall on the ground floor of the castle. Then they crossed a narrow passage, where a door stood open, and out of which came the odour of baking gingerbread that had tickled Fritz’s nostrils.
Down here in one corner of the castle, on the side where the morning sun shone brightly, three rooms had been set apart as the dwelling-place of Rudolf Hofer, caretaker of the castle, his wife, and their only child. To them the home was very dear, and these three rooms had for Rudolf many a sweet and sacred memory. It was there that his parents and grandparents, in fact, many generations of his ancestors, had dwelt; for, as far back as he could trace it, Rudolf found that a Hofer had kept the castle keys.
It was to his good wife Frieda, with her refined taste, as well as thrift, that Rudolf gave full credit for the present cheerfulness of what might have been a very cold, forbidding habitation. But, instead of dull lifelessness, every window-ledge was gay with potted plants, which gave out their treasured blossoms to the sunshine. While it was to Frieda’s, and even Katrina’s little hands, that the bright rows of tin and copper vessels, arranged along the kitchen walls, owed their glint and sparkle, when the firelight shone upon them.
From her mother, Dame Frieda had inherited the domestic virtues of her class, and now, in her own turn, she desired to cultivate in Katrina, child though she was, a love for the household arts; for, as she would say:
“Thou’lt be a wife thyself, one day, my mädchen, and it behoves thee to be a good one.”
So Katrina had her regular daily tasks. In the morning she gave attention to her flowers and fed her flock of pigeons housed in the old South Tower. They would come down into the courtyard, when Katrina appeared with her pan of grain for their breakfast; while some were even so trustful of their little mistress as to perch upon her shoulders, and eat the grain from her hand. Then, those tasks finished, Katrina would go into her own room, with its pretty but simple furnishings, its dainty white drapery, and set things in order there. Other duties followed this; sometimes it was to help her mother in the kitchen, or else she would take her knitting and sit out in the sunshine of the castle court.