"Is it much farther?"
"A league or so, madame!"
"And then?"
"We shall dine and proceed to Aschersleben. Then, if you are not too fatigued, we shall go on to Sangershausen." Then he looked across to Elspeth and a look of friendliness came into his eyes. "How is your wound to-day, Fräulein?"
"Better! Much better, captain!" Elspeth had another access of blushes.
"Of a truth," said "dark Ottilie" to herself, "there must have been some passages between this gentleman and our pastor's niece;" and she herself began to observe him more closely, how well he sat his horse, what a figure he had, as gallant a soldier as she remembered to have seen.
"Captain!" She threw aside her haughtiness for a moment as she would have dropped a cloak when she had loosed the clasp. "Whence came you?"
"From Scotland, madame!"
"The country of Marie Stuart?"