"Ah! then you also have been spying upon me?" jestingly exclaimed the baroness.
"How else could I have learned that you are so good and beautiful?" frankly returned the young girl.
"Ah, I have an idea," suddenly observed the baroness. "That spy-glass is here now. The surveyor to whom Ludwig gave it sent it to me when he had done with it. Come, we will pay Herr Ludwig back in his own coin! We will spy out what the gentlemen are doing over at the castle."
Marie was charmed with this suggestion, and willingly accompanied her "little mama" to the veranda, where the familiar telescope greeted her sight.
Two of the windows in that side of the Nameless Castle which faced the manor were lighted.
"That is the dining-room; they are at dinner," explained Marie, adjusting the glass—a task of which the baroness was ignorant. When she had arranged the proper focus, she made room for Katharina, who had a better right than she had to watch Ludwig.
"What do you see?" she asked, when Katharina began to smile.
"I see Ludwig and the vice-palatine; they are leaning out of the window, and smoking—"
"Smoking?" interposed Marie. "Ludwig never smokes."
"See for yourself!"