"Stuff!" he said, laughing. "The little lady grows too fast,--that's why she is pale and tired sometimes. Say yourself, little mouse, which tires you the most, I or your leather school-books?" "Oh, the books, the horrid books!" cried the child, taking his outstretched hand, and dancing about him like a little ballet-girl, while he slowly turned round and round. "So it goes all day long," Helena complained. "No need to hope for the quiet ordered by the doctor when those two are together. Moreover, she ought to have country air----" She broke off and looked inquiringly at her step-daughter. Johanna's face flushed; she felt that it was best to be frank. "How gladly I would ask you to leave the child with me!" she replied. "But, kind and generous as my grandfather is, he has not yet forgiven my mother's marriage, and detests anything that can remind him of my father." "You see, Helena, it is just as I told you," Batti interrupted her; adding, with a burst of rude laughter, "I know it--this aristocratic rubbish, stupid, haughty, narrow-minded----" "Carlo!" Helena whispered, with a glance towards Johanna. He was not to be deterred, however. "What the deuce are you grimacing about?" he asked. "She"--and he indicated Johanna--"is her father's daughter, and proud of her name, is she not?" "Indeed I am; but I prize my grandfather too, and love him dearly, dearly!" she replied, and her eyes flashed. He made a face, then held out to her his brown hairy hand. "You're the girl for me!" he exclaimed, seizing and almost crushing her fingers in his grasp. "Out with whatever is in your heart! A great pity that you're going to marry. A God-gifted creature like yourself belongs on horseback. And--down with the world!" He swung his arm as if it held a riding-whip, by way of completing his sentence. "Dear Johanna, you must not take amiss what he says," Helena began, with a furtive smile. "Let us alone, we understand each other!" he interrupted her. And turning to Johanna, he continued: "Let us talk together like friends. If your father, the actor, is unpopular up there,"--pointing with his thumb over his shoulder towards the castle,--"I, the equestrian artist, must be still more so. You need not reply: I know the talk. 'Players, strollers, vagabonds,' that is the verdict passed upon us by the aristocracy and the respectable public, the devil fly away with them!" "Carlo!" cried Helena. His eyes flashed. "Am I to take it all quietly when such a stuck-up set turn me out of doors? Me, Carlo Batti, renowned in Paris, in Berlin, in St. Petersburg, as well as in Vienna!" he shouted, angrily. "Come, we can stay here no longer. I must go to Remmingen to look for some horses. You will drive there with me." "You said we might stay here, Uncle Carlo!" cried the child. "I want to see the castle where my Johanna lives. Mamma promised me I should."