"Certainly, from the tenth! It was a slip of the tongue; I meant, of course, from the tenth century. But to return to the Steinrücks: Count Michael is a general in command; his son was, I think, attached to our embassy in Paris; his grandson has some official position. They are all men of the present, and would hardly coincide with your father in opinion; and you, too, will differ from him when you have seen something of life and the world." "I do not want to see anything of them," Gerlinda said, softly and timidly. "I am afraid of them." Hans smiled; he drew a step nearer, and bent down towards the girl; his voice sounded sweet and tender, as if he were speaking to a child. "That is very natural; you live here in such seclusion, in a fairy world, long since faded from reality, like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty in the fairy-tale. But some time the day will come when the hawthorn hedges will part asunder, and the green walls open, a day when you will awaken from your enchanted sleep; and believe me, Fräulein Gerlinda, your eyes will open then not upon the dust and mould of centuries, but upon the warm, golden sunshine that floods our present age, in spite of all its conflicts and trials. Ah, you will learn to love it all." Gerlinda listened in silence, but a faint, happy smile playing about her lips betrayed her knowledge of the story of the Sleeping Beauty. She slowly raised her eyes, only for an instant, and dropped them hastily; that which shone upon her in the young man's gaze might perhaps be a ray of the light he had promised her; she suddenly flushed crimson and turned hastily away. Muckerl certainly was a very intelligent goat, for she had quietly continued to browse, only glancing gravely now and then towards the pair, and appearing on the whole quite satisfied with the course of the conversation. But the matter now must have begun to look grave to her, for she suddenly left her breakfast and ran to her young mistress, beside whom she placed herself, as if on guard. "I believe--I ought to go back to the castle," said Gerlinda, scarcely audibly. "Already?" asked Hans, who had not observed that half an hour had been consumed in talk. They set out together, Hans carrying the milk, Fräulein Gerlinda beside him, and Muckerl following, gravely nodding her head from time to time. The affair evidently had a suspicious look to her,--why had the two suddenly fallen silent? An hour later Hans stood at the foot of the Ebersburg. He had taken leave of the Freiherr and of his daughter without laying aside his incognito, for fear of causing the old gentleman unnecessary annoyance. What mattered it that the Freiherr should continue to regard him as a 'mediæval specimen'? The adventure was at an end; it was not likely that he should ever again see the Ebersburg.