A maiden lady, the Baronin von Schattenthal, who was staying at the Castle with her young orphan niece, interested her with her quaint humour and sound common sense.
Little Amalia came out with her attendant to her aunt. She was a lovely child, with long auburn curls, and a dash of the French character, for her mother was a Pole.
Finding that her aunt paid no attention to her toilette nor her curls, Amalia finally whispered, "See, Tante, Gretchen has curled my hair."
"I see, my dear," said the Baronin; "but it will do you no harm if your hair does curl, if you are a good little girl."
Amalia's crestfallen, puzzled look as she walked away were amusing enough.
Soon after she came back with a very knotty question.
"Tante, could all our family ride on an elephant at once? Gretchen says they could."
"Yes, child, several small families could ride on an elephant at once."
But May was not left long at leisure to amuse herself with the pretty child.
Her hostess brought and introduced to her Baron von Stammnitz, fresh from the Heidelberg University. She soon found, however, that he was possessed of much finer cultivated hair and moustache than mind. He had dipped a little into the natural sciences, and learned a smattering of some of the absurdities of German Pantheism, and held himself competent to solve the mysteries of creation, and moral relations, of the universe and of mind, much better than the old-fashioned Moses and the Prophets, or St. Paul.