"Losing my way afterwards in the forest, falling asleep on the edge of a swamp, dreaming there all kinds of sweet, foolish things, finding upon awaking a gypsy standing before me, who tells me my fortune, getting her boy to show me the right way, and finding upon arriving at your enchanted castle no one who could lead a stranger to the lady of the house, but an amiable dog, who listens as attentively as if he understood every word we say--do you not think that doing all this requires at least as much time as I have taken to tell it to you?" The dog laid his head confidingly on the lap of his mistress and looked up at her. "Art my brave Bonc[oe]ur," she said, caressing her pet, "doest honor to thy name. Thou watchest nicely over house and home, and knowest full well that nobody else does it but thou and Baumann. Do you know that you excite my deepest interest by your encounter with the nut-brown countess, I mean the gypsy woman, and with her daughter Czika--for it is a girl, as I must tell you, to the honor of your sagacity." "A girl, the Czika?" "The Czika is a girl, you may rely on it. Where did you meet the two?" "About a quarter of an hour's walk from here, in the forest, near the same lake, on the banks of which I had fallen asleep." "Then it was upon my own soil--I am glad of that." "You seem really to be deeply interested in the fair mother and her still fairer daughter. I recollect now that the child was much too beautiful for a boy. How does the gypsy woman get the name of the nut-brown countess?" "Ah," laughed Melitta. "That is a long story, and one of those foolish undertakings of mine, in which I sympathize with you. It is now about six years since Isabel came for the first time into this district. She was then about twenty years old--perhaps, for she herself does not know her age accurately. Her child, the Czika, was four years old, that she knew, for she was her own child and not a stolen princess." "How do you know that?"