The two who were left were, it seemed, not agreeably surprised by the Count's sudden arrangement. They certainly did not fall into the tone of cousinly familiarity so promptly as he had wished. A cloud rested on the young girl's brow, and Oswald's manner showed as yet little of the chivalrous gallantry which had been enjoined upon him. At length he spoke: 'My cousin has kept his acquaintance with you so secret, that the disclosure he has just made took me altogether by surprise.' 'You made that sufficiently evident, Herr von Ettersberg,' replied Hedwig. It was strange how lofty and decided a tone she could adopt when really serious and in earnest. Oswald approached slowly. 'You are offended Fräulein, and justly offended, but the greater blame rests with Edmund. He ought never to have exposed his betrothed, his future wife, to such misconceptions as that of which I was guilty.' At this allusion a crimson flush again mounted to Hedwig's cheek. 'The reproach you address in words to Edmund is in reality aimed at me, for I was a consenting party. My imprudence was only made manifest to me just now by your look and tone.' 'I have already apologized, and now once more I pray to be forgiven,' said Oswald earnestly. 'But ask yourself, Fräulein, what a stranger, to whom a frank, straightforward explanation could not have been given, would have thought of this meeting? I say again, my cousin should not have induced you to agree to it.' 'Edmund always speaks of you as his Mentor,' exclaimed Hedwig, with unmistakable annoyance. 'It seems that, as I am engaged to be married to him, I also am to enjoy the privilege of being ... educated by you.' 'I merely wished to warn, and by no means to offend you. It is for you to judge in what spirit you should take the warning.' She made no reply. The grave earnestness of his words was not without effect upon her, though it did not altogether calm her ruffled spirit. Hedwig picked up her hat, which lay neglected on the ground, and sat down in her former place to rearrange the crushed flowers. The fresh and dainty spring headgear had suffered a little from its contact with the grass, still damp with mist and rime; such a hat was, indeed, hardly suited to the inclement April day. Spring comes tardily among the mountains, and this year especially she showed no smiling countenance. Her advent was heralded by rain and tempest. To frosty nights succeeded days of mist, through which the pale sunshine gleamed but fitfully. On this day the sky was as usual shrouded in masses of gray cloud. A wall of fog shut out the distant horizon, and the air was close and laden with moisture. The woods were still bare and leafless; in the undergrowth alone signs of the first tender green could be seen sprouting timidly forth. Each leaflet, each bud, had to struggle for existence, with difficulty holding its own in that raw, keen temperature. The scene altogether was cheerless and desolate.