Halm looked aghast. Was the Count going to impeach him with having thinned the neighbouring woods during the owner’s absence? He immediately broke into a long explanation and description of all the drives they had had that season, and told how the deer were so plentiful that the people were complaining bitterly of having their fields and gardens eaten up, and so forth, and so forth. But the embarrassment of the Count’s face only deepened, and still further deepened, until, in a querulous tone, he cried out— "I say, Anerley, I think you’d better come and listen to what he says about the sport you’re likely to get to-morrow, rather than waste time in showing Mrs. Christmas things she doesn’t care about!"—this with a hot face and an excited air. "If you listen, isn’t that enough?" said Anerley. "But, damme, I can’t understand a word he says—he talks like an engine, and all in that horrid _patois_—Herr Halm, I comprehend; but do you know, the lady loves to drink your white wine." (This in German.) "Some white wine, Herr Graf?" "Yes. Not many. We wish to drink all—four glasses, you understand." "It is so difficult," continued the Count, addressing Miss Brunel, "to get these people to understand German, if you don’t speak their barbarous form of it. However, I have told him we all wished to taste the white wine they drink here—not a bad wine, and remarkably cheap." "Let me introduce you, Miss Brunel," said Will, "to Miss Grete Halm, who says she speaks French, and will be delighted to escort you to-morrow at any time you may wish to join us. Grete says she once shot a deer herself; but I suspect somebody else pulled the trigger while she held the gun." Gretchen came forward with a warm blush on her brown cheek; and then it was arranged (she speaking French fluently enough, but with a Schwarzwald accent) that she and Annie Brunel would seek out the shooting party towards the forenoon of the following day. CHAPTER XVII. THE COUNT DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF. In the dusk of the early morning the keepers, drivers, and dogs had assembled in the large room of Hans Halm’s inn. Hermann was there too, with the great-jawed Rudolph; and Margarethe, with a shadowy reminiscence of recent dreams in her soft black eyes, stood quietly on one side, or brought some beer to this or that gruff forester, who had perhaps walked a dozen miles that morning to the place of rendezvous. The dogs lay under the chairs, the guns and deerskin pouches of the men were on the table before them, by the side of their tall feathered beavers; and if the whole scene did not look as if it had been cut out of an opera, it was because the picturesque trappings of the keepers had been sobered in colour by the rain and sun of many years, and because there dwelt over the party an austere silence. The excitement of the day had not commenced.