The old baron also was pleasantly surprised when Oswald proved an attentive listener to the long history of his complaints. Oswald had always treated him with great courtesy, and he had looked upon him as a good and amiable young man, in spite of the decided opposition of Anna Maria and the somewhat doubtful assent of the Reverend Mr. Jager. He was glad, therefore, to be able to express this opinion today in harmony with Anna Maria. The journey seemed in fact to have produced a most happy influence on the baroness. Mademoiselle Marguerite, who certainly had the means of forming an opinion on that subject, told Albert: "She is changed _totalement_, she me has not scolded a single time the whole day;" whereupon the ingenuous Albert said: "Yes; I think myself the old dragon is quite enjoyable to-day." In a word, such peace and harmony reigned to-day at Castle Grenwitz as had not been known there for many a year. Everybody seemed to have forgotten his reasons for being discontented with the others. This might indeed be the result of different causes in each case, but as the effect was very pleasing to all, they took for good coin what everybody offered as such--of course reserving the right to pay him back in the same coin. Oswald had not forgotten his meeting with Miss Helen in the morning, and, fully conscious of the impression he had then produced on the beautiful, proud young lady, he was pleased to find more than one opportunity during the day to make his natural advantages more prominent. When they asked him at table to tell what had happened to him during the absence of the family, he described his solitary life in the fishermen's village, assuming a half-amusing, half-sentimental part in the little drama, and taking good care to leave the romantic mystery undisturbed, in which he concealed his stay there. Good Mother Carsten became an heroic dame; her red-haired daughters, Stine and Line, were changed into lovely Undines, and the old half-idiotic Father Stephen into a wise Merlin. The chalk cliffs of the coast rose to immeasurable heights, and the breakers thundered amid the rocks with Ossianic majesty. The company, although feeling the exaggeration, listened nevertheless with breathless interest, and Oswald felt, as the fairest reward for his fantastic improvisation, that Helen's large brilliant eyes were immovably fixed upon him during his recitals, half in wonder and half in doubt.