The servant wheeled the old man away, and every one rose from table. Johann Leopold began to converse with Johanna upon indifferent subjects, and involuntarily she became interested. Hedwig whispered to her discomfited sister, "Rather awkward of you, my dear." Otto asked his brother-in-law, Karl, how he could allow Hildegard to display such want of tact, and was answered by a shrug of the shoulders, whilst Aunt Thekla tried to dispel every one's embarrassment by reminding them that it was time to make ready for church. "Come, let us go together!" said Magelone, putting her arm through Johanna's and leaving the room with her. "Let me entreat you not to look so grieved," she went on. "Don't let that stupid woman vex you; you know how the others love you." Johanna pressed Magelone's arm, and went up-stairs with her in silence. At the door of her room she said, "You must go to church without me to-day; I cannot feel devotional after what has happened." "Oh, Johanna, we ought not to bear malice! Be kind, and come," Magelone entreated; but with a decided "I cannot!" Johanna left her and shut herself up in her own room. She could not say to Magelone that she was far less annoyed by Hildegard's hostility than by the prospect of being thrust into a society where she was not welcome. "If I could but get away!" she thought, as she looked from the window out over the wintry landscape. "Yes, away, away, if but for an hour!" she said, aloud. And putting on her wraps, and accompanied by Leo, barking joyously, she hurried out into the park, and thence to the path that led up the mountain from the village into the forest. Her heart grew lighter in the fresh winter air. She walked on quickly, upwards beneath the snow-laden boughs, upon which the sunlight played in thousands of prisms, and from which the glittering dust came powdering down upon her. At length the sight of the forester's lodge, its windows sparkling in the sunshine, warned her to return. Since she had come thus far, she would inquire after Johann Leopold's protégé. Greeted and accompanied by the barking dogs, she was going towards the door, when close by the house a girl, very poorly clad, with a shawl about her head and shoulders, came out of the thicket. The slender figure stooped low as it passed the windows, softly lifted the latch of the house-door, and went in. Johanna followed her. She turned to the door of the room opposite the sitting-room, and laid a little, blue, half-frozen hand upon the latch. "Jakob!" she whispered, as she tried to open it gently. But on the instant the door of the sitting room opened, and the forester's wife in a black gown and a cap with white ribbons made her appearance, the hymn-book in which she had been reading in her hand.