"I found nothing except one little room for myself, in a hut even worse than this. All the large houses are filled to overflowing. Satan himself brought us among these confounded peasants!" he said angrily in French.
"Don't speak so," replied the countess earnestly in the same language. "They are saints." The little girl whispered to her mother.
"Please excuse me, Sir; but my child understands French and has just told me that you could get no room for the lady," said Andreas' daughter timidly. "I know where there is one in a very pretty house near by. I will run over as quickly as I can and see if it is still vacant. If you could secure it you would find it much better than ours." She hurried towards the door.
"Stop, woman," called the prince, "you cannot possibly go out; the rain is pouring in torrents, and another shower is rising."
"Yes, stay," cried the countess, "wait till the storm is over."
"Oh, no! lodgings are being taken every minute, we must not lose an instant." The next moment she threw a shawl over her head and left the house. She was just running past the low window--a vivid flash of lightning illumined the room, making the little bent figure stand forth like a silhouette. A peal of thunder quickly followed.
"The storm is just over us," said the prince with kindly anxiety. "We ought not to have let her go."
"Oh, it is of no consequence," said the old man smiling, "she is glad to do it."
"Tell me about these strange people," the prince began, but the countess motioned to him that the child understood French. He looked at her with a comical expression as if he wanted to say: "These are queer 'natives' who give their children so good an education."
The countess went to the window, gazing uneasily at the raging storm. A feeling of self-reproach stole into her heart for having let the kind creature go out amid this uproar of the elements. Especially when these people would take no compensation and therefore lost a profit, if another lodging was found.