Marie now gave her friends the signal that she was unable to retain the clerk of the council any longer, which roused them from their absorbing conversation. Bertha quickly composed herself, and with Albert quitted the arbour.
"Cousin Kraft wishes to depart," said Marie, "and requires his friend to accompany him."
"I must indeed go with you, if I wish to find my way home," replied the young man, who was too well acquainted with the received customs of his day, not to be aware that he, a stranger, could not remain with the young ladies, without their cousin being of the party, precious as the last moments, before a long separation from his love, might be to him.
They proceeded down the garden, the silence only broken by Dieterick, who expressed his sorrow, in very courteous terms, at the prospect of his cousin leaving Ulm so soon as the morrow. But Marie, thinking she discovered something in the look of Albert's eye, which expressed a wish not yet satisfied, and to the accomplishment of which witnesses might be unwelcome, drew cousin Kraft on one side, and questioned him so closely upon a plant, whose leaves were just bursting, that he had not time to observe what was going on behind his back.
Albert took immediate advantage of the happy moment, and pressed Bertha once more to his heart. The noise occasioned by her heavy silken dress, and the clattering of his sword, drew the scribe's attention from his botanical observations; he looked around, and oh, wonder! he saw his very reserved cousin in the arms of his guest.
"That was a salute for the dear cousin in Franconia, I suppose?" he remarked, after he had recovered from his surprise.
"No, Mr. Secretary," answered Albert, with firmness, "it was a salute for me alone, and from her whom I hope one day to call my own. Have you anything to say against it, my friend?"
"God forbid! I congratulate you with all my heart," answered Dieterick, somewhat subdued by the determined look of the young man. "But, by the powers, I call that an entire case of veni, vidi, vici. I have been trying my luck with the beauty for more than a quarter of a year, and I can scarcely boast of one kind look from her during the whole time."
"Forgive the joke, cousin, which we have played upon you," said Marie; "be reasonable, and let me explain the matter." She then gave him to understand, why Albert and he had been invited into the garden, and begged him to be silent upon the subject before Bertha's father. He was softened into compliance by the kind look of Marie, upon condition, that she would submit also to the same ordeal her cousin had just undergone.
Marie gently repelled his unmannerly request, and, by way of teazing him, asked him again at the garden door the natural history of a violet, the first of the season. He was kind enough to give her a long and learned dissertation upon the subject, without allowing himself to be interrupted by the noise of a rustling silk dress or clattering sword. A grateful look from Bertha, a friendly shake of the hand from Marie, rewarded him at parting; and long floated the veils of the pretty cousins over the garden hedge, as their eyes followed the path of the young men.