and the fine old glee sounded fairly well as we drove through the gathering gloom of the forest. But Tita sang, in her low, sweet fashion, that Swedish bridal song that begins:
“Oh, welcome her so fair, with bright and flowing hair;
May Fate through life befriend her, love and smiles attend her;”
and though she sang quietly, just as if she were singing to herself, we all listened with great attention, and with great gratitude too. When we got out of Huferschingen, the stars were out over the dark stretches of forest, and the windows of the quaint old inn were burning brightly.
“And have you enjoyed the amusement of the day?” says Miss Fahler, rather shyly, to a certain young man who is emptying his creel of fish. He drops the basket to turn round and look at her face and say earnestly:
“I have never spent so delightful a day; but it wasn’t the fishing.”
Things were becoming serious.
And next morning Charlie got hold of Tita, and said to her, in rather a shamefaced way:
“What am I to do about that fox? It was only a joke, you know; but if Miss Fahler gets to hear of it, she’ll think it was rather shabby.”
It was always Miss Fahler now; a couple of days before it was Franziska.
“For my part,” says Tita, “I can’t understand why you did it. What honour is there in shooting a fox?”