"She occupied herself with heraldry and charity. That is, she painted the Schirmberg coat-of-arms on every object that would hold it, and she engaged all their evening visitors, who were not playing whist with her brother, in cutting little strips of paper to stuff hospital pillows. For their reward she used to have them served at ten o'clock with weak tea and hard biscuits, but, as even the best families in Salzburg still keep up the barbarous custom of dining at one o'clock, the guests found their supper rather meagre.
"When she wanted to give them a special treat, she read to them in a thin voice out of an old Chronicle about the deeds of the Schrimbergs.
"She had a marked weakness for Zwilk. He cut papers with enthusiasm: he listened to the Chronicles with ecstasy: he fell on one knee to kiss her hand when she graciously extended it at leave-taking.
"It was Sylvester Day, in the yard of the Riding School. The cold winter sun fell dazzlingly on the hard, white snow. Long, strangely twisted icicles hung from the snow-covered roofs, against the gloomy sides of the buildings which surrounded the court.
"We had given our recruits a good dressing down in the Riding School, and now we were standing about in little groups chatting, cheerful and hungry, in the cold court. I heard Erich Truyn behind me, speaking in that polite, pleasant tone which he kept especially for poor country priests, and scared women of the lower classes. He was saying, 'I'm sorry, but First Lieutenant Zwilch is engaged at present. Shall I send for him?' I turned round. There in the old, grey archway stood handsome Truyn, blonde, slender, careless, easy, correct without pedantry; from head to foot what a cavalier ought to be. Beside him, square, clumsy, tufts of grey hair over his ears, a grey beard under his chin, face mottled red and blue from the cold, mouth and eyes surrounded by fine wrinkles, cheeks rough and seamed like the shell of an English walnut,--an old man, a stranger.
"He wore very poor clothes, half town, half country make, a short sheepskin, high boots, from which green worsted stockings protruded, a long faded scarf with a grey fringe twisted round his neck. He had a little bundle tied up in a red handkerchief squeezed under one arm, and he was kneading nervously in his two hands a shabby old fur cap, as he looked up with an expression half frightened, half confiding to Count Erich.
"That usually so self-possessed young gentleman was much embarrassed, and was making visible efforts to hide it, while he strove at the same time to encourage the old stranger.
"'Shall I send for him?' he asked a second time. 'Oh! please, I can wait, please,'--stammered the old man in his gemüthlich Upper-Austrian dialect.
"I took him for a small mechanic; he was too diffident for a peasant, and not shabby enough for a day laborer.
"'I can wait,' he repeated. 'Have already waited, long, very long, Herr Lieutenant.'