She telegraphed to Countess B---- that we were coming without maids, and with only necessary baggage; and my maid immediately went to work to pack what she considered necessary for this visit. She put a dinner-dress, with high and low waists, as the occasion might require, an extra day-dress, and all kinds of accessories, filling a good-sized trunk. We started early the next morning. Countess Westphal was full of happy expectations; so was I. We were four hours on the way before we reached our destination; but Countess Westphal cheerfully remarked that time was of no consequence. On our arrival at the forlorn little station I looked in vain for the lordly chariot I thought would be waiting for us. Countess Westphal seemed astonished also, but with her usual good-nature accounted for the absence of the chariot by saying that her friend could not possibly have received the telegram. We lingered about, hoping that some vehicle would appear; but as none did so, Countess Westphal started off to find one, and she finally succeeded in tempting a man, for the vast sum of four marks, to drive us to the _schloss_. After the coachman had gathered the reins off the back of the old, rickety horse, I leaned back in my seat and pictured to myself what this beautiful _schloss_ we were going to would be like. Of course, it would have a moat around it (all old castles do); it would have all the modern comforts combined with the traditions of past glories; it would have avenues of grand old trees and marble statues, and terraces leading into Italian gardens, and so forth. In fact, my imagination got so riotous that I forgot to look at the treeless, muddy roads, and I never noticed the wrenching of the ancient landau in which we were. As we were jolted over the desolate landscape, Countess Westphal tried to tell me the family history of the B----s, but I only gathered bits of it here and there; such as that he was the fourth son of a very distinguished father and mother, and had no prospect worth speaking of, except the prospect of the dreary place we were careering over; that they never left their native heath and had no children, and that they lived on their estate (being the only thing they had to live on), and so forth and so forth, all of which went in at the ear next the Countess and went out at the ear next the road.