Seeing him stand there on the threshold of the house, the tall old man with his white beard and scarred face, crossing his strong arms on his broad chest, and thoughtfully looking with his bright, truthful eyes into the distance, one would have imagined a better guardian could not be found. But alas! the house was empty; the beloved mistress had gone away, into the storm-threatening twilight, with the stranger, a man whom she did not know yesterday! And he, the faithful servant, sighed deeply as he went slowly back to the supper-room, with bent head, and then began to clear the table. "The gracious gifts of heaven scarcely touched!" he murmured. "I do not like that. When young people are not hungry, they have mischief brewing. And the wine hardly tasted! There is the bottle more than half full ... and to-morrow it is unfit for the table ... to-morrow." The old man sat down by the table and rested his careworn gray head in his wrinkled hand. "But young people don't think of to-morrow. To-morrow the young gentleman with the soft voice and the large blue eyes is back again at Grenwitz, and who knows where the day after to-morrow finds him? But old Baumann is here--to-morrow and the day after to-morrow, and when the guests are gone the house looks very differently, and when they sweep it they find ... Yes, yes--old Baumann sees what no one else sees, and hears what no one else hears. Ah! Baumann, I wish I were dead! ah, Baumann, why did you carry me that day out of the fire? Now she says; I am not afraid of the thunder-storm! and Baumann! don't send the carriage for us. Hm, hm! I ought not to have consented; I ought to have taken her aside and said to her: Look here, child, so and so; think of this and that! ... But when I see the little one so happy, so cheerful--as in those days when she was riding her pony, a little girl of twelve, and she said: Please, please, dear Baumann, let us have a race now; why, I never could say no to her, and away we went as fast as the creatures would run. She had the same big, brilliant eyes again to-night, and she looked just as rosy and fresh again! Poor, poor child! Yes, yes. You wanted to see if all the windows are properly closed; it is only on account of the thunder-storm!" Oswald and Melitta hastened joyously, like children coming from school, out of the house through the green avenues to the gate, which led from the garden into the meadow. Behind the sloping meadow lay the forest. Close by the gate, and for some distance along the garden, there was a pond, half bog, and here and there a few willows on the banks; for the waters of the brook were caught here by an old dam and turned around the court-yard, from which they ran merrily down through the village. Even the meadow had become partly boggy, and in spring was often quite under water; now large stones served as a kind of rough bridge at the very wet places.