When old Heim appeared, he listened with a queer smile to the terrible tale that Angelika whispered into his ear. "What a fellow he is,--this Johannes!" he said with kindly humour. "With her! with her at the castle! That's going rather too fast,--eh?" "Oh, uncle!" cried Angelika, "is that all the sympathy you have for us in so grave a matter?" "Why, you see, my child, the matter does not seem so grave to me as to you. Johannes is a man, and knows what he is about. You act as if he were a beardless boy, whose nurse ought to follow him about. If this clever girl pleases him, it is a proof of his taste. Whatever you do, I will not league with you for all the beseeching glances of those forget-me-not eyes of yours." And the old gentleman seated himself deliberately upon Angelika's straw hat, that she had forgotten to take from the chair where she had thrown it. "God bless me! what kind of a cushion have you put in my chair?" he cried, producing, amid universal laughter, a flattened mass of straw and violets that bore not the faintest resemblance to a hat. "That comes of leaving one's things about. Who would have supposed that I should go about in my old age sitting upon straw hats? Well, well, child, to-day is a day of misfortunes!" The company quickly assembled. The ladies seated themselves at the large round tea-table, the gentlemen stood about in groups, and, as smoking was allowed, puffed forth blue clouds of smoke into the clear evening air. The moon began to cast a pale light through the crimson evening glow. Night-moths fluttered hither and thither, and now and then a big booming beetle would fly around the heads of the startled ladies. The tired birds flew in among the bushes to seek their nests, arousing the alarm of the younger girls who were in great terror of bats. Suddenly a wiry voice without was heard chirping Rückert's song: "Yes, a household dear and blest Mine shall always be. I'll invite there as my guest Him who pleases me." And Elsa, leaning on her brother's arm, appeared at the door. The Staatsräthin arose. "Ah, my dearest, motherly friend," cried Elsa from afar, gliding towards her, "I am late, am I not? Could my thoughts have borne me hither, I should have been with you long ago; but imagine--our droschky lost a wheel--and we had to walk all the way." "I am very sorry," said the Staatsräthin kindly. "You must have had quite a fright." "Yes, it was a most unfortunate intermezzo, disturbing our anticipations of the pleasant evening," said Herbert politely. "Oh, it did not spoil my enjoyment," laughed Elsa with pretty assurance, and she piped out the last couplet of her song: "Thrown from the carriage should I be, A flowery grave awaiteth me." "The only thing to lament was our tardiness in reaching you, and I ran myself quite out of breath."