Ernestine lifted to his her large melancholy eyes so beseechingly that he lost his composure. "You are enough to drive one insane, you enigmatical little creature! Who taught you that look--the look of an angel imprisoned by some evil magician in the body of a kobold? God knows what will become of you! You will not let me come, then? No? Are you not afraid? Nothing to be got out of you but a shake of the head! Well, go! I cannot force you. Good-night, then!" He held out his hand; she seized it, pressed it with passionate energy, and then ran across the fields as fast as her feet could carry her. Johannes let her run for some minutes, and then followed her at a distance; he could not allow the helpless child to go home without watching over her safety. She ran as if she had wings, without once looking round; but Johannes noticed that she kissed the book several times, and pressed it to her heart, as if it had been some living thing. When at last he came in sight of Ernestine's home, he stopped. "Heaven be merciful to the man who will one day take her for a wife!" he thought, and slowly turned away. Ernestine entered the garden of her dreary home with a throbbing heart. A grumbling maid-servant opened the door for her. "You are late," she scolded. "That is just like you--first you wouldn't go, and then you don't want to come home. You always want to do something else than what you should." Ernestine made no reply. "Can I have something to eat?" she asked briefly. "To eat! Likely, indeed! Am I to go to the stable at ten o'clock at night and milk a cow for you? for there is nothing else that I can get. You know well enough that I have no keys!" "Is Frau Gedike in bed, then?" "If you were not so stupid, you might know that!" "But I am hungry!" "That serves you right; you should have eaten enough at the party. Of course they gave you something to eat?" Ernestine was silent, and followed the maid into the room, where she hastily concealed her torn hat in the wardrobe. "My feet are wet," she said, shivering. "Give me some dry stockings."