On the following day the weather had cleared up. The morning sun had been hid behind thick mists, but a few hours later it had rent the gray veil, and was now pouring its golden light upon the refreshed earth. In the garden of the château all looked paradisiacally fresh and fragrant, as on the first day of creation. The flowers raised their heads again, and if here and there a few drops were still hanging in a calyx, they looked in the bright sunshine like sparkling tears of joy; the birds were singing with delight in the thick branches of the trees, and the little worms that had been waiting patiently in all the crevices, under the leaves and under the stones, came forth in restless activity. And around the gray walls of the castle, which were now flooded with rosy light, swift swallows were flitting to and fro, and on the roof, in the gutters, between the stucco ornaments quarrelsome sparrows were resuming their difficulties. In the large hall, where the portraits of Grenwitz barons and baronesses were hanging on the walls in long rows, from the fabulous Sven down to the great-aunt of the baron, "as she had been at eighteen," and to Oscar, "who fell with Wodan," and Harald's, "who would have done better to weep himself to death at his father's coffin;"--the atoms were dancing about, as they rose from the old gala-furniture with the faded damask covers, in the three slanting bridges of light formed by the three arched windows. Down stairs, in the breakfast-room, the baron and the baroness were enjoying their frugal meal. They looked ready for their journey, and Anna Maria had already put on her huge bonnet with wide projecting wings, as it had been worn some twenty years ago. The great travelling carriage was waiting at the door. The four heavy bays whisked their bobtails thoughtfully to and fro, and the silent coachman cracked his whip regularly every five minutes, from mere force of habit, and not to admonish his master to be in a hurry, for that would have been incompatible with the respect he owed them as well as with his phlegmatic nature. "I knew it," said the baroness, offering her husband half a glass of Moselle wine,--"drink that, dear Grenwitz, it will give you strength for the journey,--I knew it. He refuses our kind offer because he is not very well! Ridiculous." "He really looks as if he were not very well," said the old baron, "ever since we were at Barnewitz, and then it does not look quite well, it seems to me, that we should ask him to accompany us just when the carriage is at the door! We ought to have done it sooner, perhaps." "I do not understand you, dear Grenwitz," said the baroness. "Don't you talk as if Mr. Stein was our equal! No wonder that the young man is running over with pride. To ask him a week ahead to pay a visit in the neighborhood! That would be nice! Why, we have not even mentioned our Heligoland journey to him!"