The President rubbed his thin white hands contentedly before the fire in his own comfortable room, and murmured, as John put the baggage in order, "Delightful; very delightful! I think this will fully reconcile the young lady to her misfortune and restore her grouchy father to a sociable frame of mind."
Else was fully reconciled. To be released from the close, jolting prison of a landau and introduced into a brightly lighted castle in the midst of the forest, where servants stood with torches at the portal; to be most heartily welcomed in the ancient hall, with its strangely ornamented columns, by two ladies who approached from among the arms and armor with which the walls and columns were hung and surrounded, and conducted into the snuggest of all the apartments; to enjoy a flickering open fire, brightly burning wax tapers before a tall mirror in a rich rococo frame, velvet carpets of a marvelous design which was repeated in every possible variation upon the heavy hangings before the deeply recessed windows, on the portières of the high gilded doors, and the curtains of the antique bed—all this was so fitting, so charming, so exactly as it should be in an adventure! Else shook the hand of the matronly Madame von Strummin, thanked her for her kindness, and kissed the pretty little Marie, with the mischievous brown eyes, and asked permission to call her "Meta," or "Mieting," just as her mother did, who had just left the room. Mieting returned the embrace with the greatest fervor and declared that nothing more delightful in the world could have come to her than the invitation for this evening. She, with her Mamma, felt so bored at Strummin!—it was horribly monotonous in the country!—and in the midst of it this letter from the Count! She was fond of coming to Golmberg, anyhow—the forest was so beautiful, and the view from the platform of the tower, from the summit of Golmberg beyond the forest over the sea—that was really charming; to be sure, the opportunity but seldom! Her mother was a little indolent, and the gentlemen thought of their hunting, their horses, and generally only of themselves. Thus she had not been a little surprised, too, at the haste of the Count today in procuring company for the strange young lady, just as if he had already known beforehand how fair and lovely the strange young lady was, and how great the pleasure of being with her, and of chattering so much nonsense; if she might say "thou" to her, then they could chatter twice as pleasantly.
The permission gladly given and sealed with a kiss threw the frolicsome girl into the greatest ecstasy. "You must never go away again!" she exclaimed; "or, if you do, only to return in the autumn! He will not marry me, in any case; I have nothing, and he has nothing in spite of his entail, and Papa says that we shall all be bankrupt here if we don't get the railroad and the harbor. And your Papa and the President have the whole matter in hand, Papa said as we drove over; and if you marry him, your Papa will give the concession, as a matter of course—I believe that's what it's called, isn't it? And you are really already interested in it as it is; for the harbor, Papa says, can be laid out only on the estates which belong to your aunt, and you and your brother—you inherit it from your aunt—are already coheirs? It is a strange will, Papa says, and he would like to know how the matter really is. Don't you know? Please do tell me! I promise not to tell anyone."
"I really don't know," replied Else. "I only know that we are very poor, and that you may go on and marry your Count for all me."
"I should be glad to do so," said the little lady seriously, "but I'm not pretty enough for him, with my insignificant figure and my pug nose. I shall marry a rich burgher some day, who is impressed by our nobility—for the Strummins are as old as the island, you know—a Mr. Schulze, or Müller, or Schmidt. What's the name of the captain who came with you?"
"Schmidt, Reinhold Schmidt."
"No, you're joking!"
"Indeed, I'm not; but he's not a captain."
"Not a Captain! What then?"