"Ay, upon my veracity! Could I ever have thought that my old eyes would have beheld Albert von Sturmfeder again! And I verily believe you have grown handsomer and taller than when I last saw you! Who could have thought it? Look, he stands like a stick at the door! Well, but who is it that dares speak thus to my dear young lady? It is not my master, nor any of his servants! Ay! what does one live to see? Young Albert, it is you who have been upbraiding my child!"
During this rapid flow of exclamations, Albert in vain sought to escape from the old woman, and though he determined, in the heat of the moment, to leave the castle, he felt it unseemly to let her suppose he had been quarrelling with Bertha. He shook off the grasp which the nurse had of him, and, in spite of her reproachful smile, took the hand of Bertha, at the same time pressing it to his heart. A glance from her eye calmed the tumult of his feelings. But a fresh conflict, a new embarrassment agitated him. His anger indeed subsided, he felt convinced that Bertha could not entertain that unkindness towards him which his heated imagination had conjured up--but how to reconcile it with his honour, to submit to the shame of being subdued by a squeeze of the hand, or a glance of the eye, before a witness, was a difficulty in which pride had its share. He blushed for his weakness, in standing self-convicted before the old woman; and we have often heard that the feeling of shame, and the embarrassment of getting out of a scrape, such as Albert's precipitation had drawn him into, without committing our honour, is apt often to convert a trifling quarrel into a lasting one, and dissolve ties founded on the basis of tender affection.
Old Rosel perceived with some degree of pleasure the anxiety and sorrow of her young lady, and would perhaps have gladly taken advantage of her distress, by way of punishing her for the withdrawal of her confidence, had not her natural kindness of heart resumed its sway over the malicious joy which she had given way too. She looked at the young man full in the face, and said, "You surely don't intend to leave us so soon, since it is but an hour ago that you arrived at Lichtenstein? Before you have had your mid-day meal, we will not allow you to depart, for that would be quite against the custom of the castle; and besides which, you have probably not yet seen my master?"
It was a great point gained for Bertha's cause to hear Albert speak again: "I have already spoken to him," he said; "as a proof of it, look at the two goblets we have emptied together."
"Well," continued the old woman, "but you would not leave his house without wishing him farewell?"
"No, I ought not certainly, as he desired me to wait for him in the castle," replied the young man.
"Aye, why would you go away in such a hurry, then?" she said, and forced him back into the room; "do you call that manners? My master would wonder, indeed, to think what kind of guest he had entertained. Whoever comes here by day," she added, with a searching look at Bertha, "whoever comes by broad daylight, possesses a clear conscience, and need not slip away like a thief in the night."
Bertha blushed, and pressed the hand of her lover, who could not refrain from smiling, when he thought of the old woman's mistaken notion respecting the nocturnal visitor, and remarked the reproachful glance which she threw at her child.
"Yes, yes, as I said," she continued, "you have no occasion to steal away like a thief in the night. It had been better, perhaps, had you come sooner. The proverb says, 'judge for yourself, to doubt is dangerous, and he who seeks peace and quiet, let him remain with his cow!'--but I say nothing."
"Well, then," said Bertha, "you see he remains here; your proverbs are misplaced. You know, yourself, they do not always agree with the subject."