A few minutes afterwards, when the Count returned, she was seated at the window, looking out with vague absent eyes on the great undulations of the black-green forest, on the soft sunlight that lay upon the hills along the horizon, and on the little nook of Schönstein with the brown houses, the white church, and the large inn. She started slightly as he entered. He held another envelope in his hand. "I have brought a reply," he said, "but a man does not write much with his left hand, in bed." On a corner of the sheet of paper she had sent, there were written these words, "_I thank you heartily. God bless you!—W.A._" And her only thought as she read them was, "Not even in England—not even in England." Grete appeared, blushing in her elaborate finery. Her violet bodice was resplendent, with its broad velvet collar embroidered with gold; her snow-white sleeves were full-blown and crimp; and her hair was braided, and hung down in two long tails from underneath the imposing black head-dress, with its ornamentation of gold beads. Grete had manufactured another of those embroidered miracles, which she was now carrying in her trunk to Aenchen Baumer. It was with a little sob of half-hysteric delight that she drove out of the stone courtyard, and realised the stupendous fact that Hermann Löwe was to accompany them to the Feldberg. Mrs. Christmas, studying the strange expression of her adopted daughter’s face, thought she was becoming remarkably like the Annie Napier whom she knew long ago. "May she have a very different fate!" said the old woman to herself, as she thought of the weary and solitary life-struggle, the self-denial, the heroic fortitude of those bygone and bitter days. CHAPTER XX. HOMEWARDS. "If mademoiselle chooses," said Grete, "we can walk along the side of the Titi See, and allow the carriage to go on by itself. The road is very pretty from the lake onwards to the Feldberg." Mademoiselle was in that frame of mind when any change involving action was a delicious relief, and she gladly embraced the proposal. "If the old lady prefers to drive all the way," said Grete, with a touch of maidenly pride, "Hermann ought to accompany her. I can find the way for us two, mademoiselle."