It was impossible to transgress these orders; and although Aunt Thekla took care that the cake and its customary wreath were provided, and even increased the Freiherr's 'bit of money' to the extent that her resources would permit, and although Magelone and Johanna presented their gifts duly, Otto felt the depression which weighed upon the family generally, and it did not need the Freiherr's homily, in which he was reminded that now he was thirty years of age and must put away boyish follies, to put him thoroughly out of humour. The crosser he felt, however, the more he resolved not to show it. In defiance of the old Herr, who, he said to himself, was always doing his best to crush out all independent thought and action, he persisted, undeterred by Aunt Thekla's warning glances, in provoking conversation at the dinner-table, and, failing in this attempt, he proposed as soon as the meal was over, in direct opposition to the custom of the family, to take coffee under the three oaks in the forest,--a spot dedicated by all the gentry in the country round to parties of pleasure in the open air. The Freiherr, who had just reached the door of the dining-hall, paused. "Well, child, you are not going to absent yourself from the party?" he said, looking over his shoulder at Johanna, who was following him. "I will do without you to-day." She cast one longing glance towards the group at the window, and then looked into her grandfather's gloomy face. "Thank you," she made reply, stepping up to his side; "I would rather stay at home with you." The next moment the door closed behind them. Otto bit his lip impatiently, Magelone laughed derisively. "Oh, this Johanna!" she exclaimed, irritated by Otto's evident vexation, "how clever she is! She has added in a twinkling another ray to the saintly halo around her brow." "But, my child," Aunt Thekla interposed, reproachfully, "you cannot mean--Johanna is really so good,--so simple,--so modest." "There is just where she shows her art, my dear aunt, in preventing almost every one from observing the pains she takes to make herself of importance," Magelone rejoined. "A simple creature like myself would have said, 'Thanks, my dear Otto; it is rather too warm for your scheme.' But she sacrifices herself for grandpapa,--stays in a cool room entirely for his sake." "You are unjust," Otto said, with unusual emphasis. "And you are partial," Magelone declared. "But wait; your eyes will be opened. At present it would be pleasant to close them," she added, changing her tone, "in this intolerable heat." And, fluttering her fan diligently, she followed Aunt Thekla into the drawing-room, where the old lady took her accustomed seat in the corner of the sofa for a short nap, and her niece seated herself near her in a rocking-chair, and from beneath her drooping eyelids watched Otto, who had withdrawn to the centre window in an ill humour and was turning over the leaves of a periodical.