"The luck is all yours, Michael," he said, with all his old gayety. "You are returning crowned with laurels to your betrothed, while I still have a hard battle to fight. My little Dornröschen has indeed been faithful and brave, but the tall thorny hedge still confronts me in all the toughness of the tenth century. This uniform of mine is very uncomfortable in travelling, but I hope to impress my father-in-law with it. Perhaps it may move him to be confronted by the nineteenth century in all its warlike pomp." "As usual, you regard the matter in its ludicrous aspect," rejoined Michael; "but indeed you ought to reflect that not only the old Freiherr, but your father also, refuses his consent." "Yes, fathers are undoubtedly very difficult to deal with," Hans assented. "By dint of reading Gerlinda's letters to my father I have at last convinced him that she is sane, but he obstinately insists that lunacy is hereditary in the Eberstein family, and admonishes me to have regard for future generations. The Freiherr, on the other hand, maintains that godless irreverence is hereditary. Moreover, he must have an inkling that since the troops are dismissed I shall shortly come to the surface, for he has forbidden Gerlinda to drive to Steinrück. As if there were any use in that! I shall as the Knight of Forschungstein attack the Ebersburg, and as a preliminary climb the castle wall, and find my Dornröschen waiting for me on the terrace." Michael listened rather absently, gazing the while towards Castle Steinrück, which had been visible for some time and was now close at hand. He remarked, casually, "You seem to be in constant correspondence with her,--was not an interchange of letters forbidden?" "Of course it was, by both fathers. That is why we wrote so constantly to each other during the war. The archives of the family will be wonderfully enriched by the letters recounting the story of our love and misfortunes. But these last have gone on long enough, and if the old Freiherr will not listen to reason he must be clapped into the castle dungeon, and be kept there, as was Balduin of blessed memory six hundred years ago, until he consented to the marriage of Kunrad von Eberstein and Hildegard von Ortenau. Oh, I am well up now in the family chronicles. I make no more mistakes in the names." Michael made no answer; as the carriage was driving up the hill he gazed eagerly towards the castle windows. Hans followed the direction of his eyes. "And your grandfather is there too?" "Yes, he came a week ago, and he has been obliged to ask for a long leave; the fatigue he has undergone has told terribly upon his health. But I hope everything from this mountain air."