"The Canoness!" I repeated in surprise. "Has the baron so old a daughter?"
"No, sir. The baron's daughter is only fourteen. She's Fräulein Leopoldine. But the Canoness--hi!"
He urged on his bays with a loud crack of the whip, for we were just turning out of the avenue into the castle court-yard. I was obliged to repress my curiosity for the present.
The castle really did honor to its name. It was a very large building, dating back from the commencement of the previous century, with a lofty lower story, to which led a double flight of broad steps, above which was a second story richly decorated with stucco ornaments--a style, however, that did not exactly harmonize with the peaked roof and irregular attic windows. From this central building a wing extended at right angles on the left almost to the avenue of elms, while the right wing, which, as I afterward learned, had been destroyed by a great fire, was replaced by a clumsy square tower three stories high. Yet this tower bore above its four gables a gigantic cupola, garnished with pinnacles and battlements of all sorts, which gave it an air of chivalrous boldness.
A servant in a light-green livery received me at the top of the steps, said that his master was expecting me, and ushered me into the house with condescending familiarity, as if he considered me a sort of colleague. The cool, dim hall paved with tiles, the broad stone staircase, the antlers that adorned the walls, the numerous servants of both sexes, who were peeping curiously from different doors, produced a strong impression upon me, though I secretly regretted the absence of a more formal reception by my future patron's assembled family. But I consoled myself with the thought that this was the genuine aristocratic demeanor, and resolved to maintain my own dignity and command the respect due my ecclesiastical character even from high-born laymen.
Meantime I had climbed the steep stairs to the highest story in the tower till I was fairly out of breath. But when I entered the apartment the footman showed me as mine, I was instantly reconciled to the quarters gained by the toilsome ascent. It was a corner room with four wide, almost square windows, which afforded a most superb view, over the tops of the trees in the avenue, of fields and moorland, forest and farms, and the village houses gathered about the handsome village church like a flock of chickens around the clucking hen. The whole scene was steeped in the brightest noonday sunlight, and filmy bluish clouds floated from the chimneys of the low straw-thatched roofs, pierced by single sunbeams, and swayed to and fro by a fresh April breeze.
Dinner would be served in fifteen minutes, the servant said. Did the Herr Candidate want anything? I asked for my trunks, and had just time to brush the dust of my journey from my clothing, when a big, hollow-sounding bell, which roused a welcome echo in my empty stomach, began to ring in the hall below.
I cast one more glance into the tiny mirror, which, like the rest of the furniture, did not produce a very magnificent impression, and, after having combed my hair smoothly, and pushed my long locks neatly behind my ears, descended the steep tower-stairs, spite of the consciousness of my ecclesiastical dignity, with a somewhat quickened pulsation of the heart.
The dining-room was on the lower floor, directly behind the entrance-hall, a vaulted apartment, whose four high windows looked out upon the garden. The wide glass door in the center opened on a small terrace, from which a few steps led to the flower-beds. But I did not notice all this at my first entrance, as my whole interest was engrossed by the various persons who were assembled.