But the ice was broken, and Elsa took care that it should not form again, although there were some difficult points to be got over still. When Aunt Sidonie had mentioned casually that her brother had already left the house when Valerie's letter came, and consequently knew and could know nothing of their visit, "though he would doubtless have given his permission for it," Elsa blushed for Aunt Sidonie when she saw how painfully Aunt Valerie's lips quivered at the thoughtless words. She hastened to say that, after the letter received yesterday from her aunt, her father had only expected her on the evening of this day, when it occurred to her that her father's message would now seem very improbable, and, blushing again at the contradiction in which she had involved herself, she was silent. "Never mind, dear Elsa," said Valerie, kindly pressing her hand, "I am grateful enough as it is. Everything cannot come right at once;" and she added, to herself, "Nothing will come right so long as I am in the power of my tyrant, who has once again seen, with one glance of his unerring eyes, what was hidden from my longing heart." In the meantime, Aunt Sidonie had entered on a subject which had occupied all her attention since the day before yesterday, and which she talked of now with the greater pleasure that she considered it a perfectly safe one: "Though I hardly know, my dear Valerie, how far your long absence may have influenced your interest in the joys and sorrows of your family. Here it is only a question, of joys. You need not raise your eyebrows, Elsa--it does not improve your looks; besides that, it shows a want of confidence in my discretion, which, to put it mildly, is not very flattering to me, and is so much the more out of place that you ought by this time to be convinced of the groundlessness of your doubts and fancies. It is certainly not saying too much if I declare that I guessed the truth before any one, not even excepting Ottomar himself. The worldly advantages of the connection, its suitableness from all points of view--good heavens! no reasonable person could doubt it or ever has doubted it, as Baroness Kniebreche assured me yesterday, and she would certainly know if the contrary were the case, and if any one voice had been raised against it. The Baroness, dear Valerie, born a Countess Drachenstein, of the Drachenstein-Wolfszahn branch, the widow of the Lieutenant-General, a comrade and friend of our late father--eighty-two years old, but still astonishingly fresh, an extremely clever, delightful old lady, whose acquaintance you would be charmed to make--very intimate with the Wallbachs, and whose particular favourite our Carla always was. You have upset my ideas with your unnecessary grimaces, my dear Elsa, and it is your fault if I appear to your Aunt Valerie as absent as I am usually collected. You know me of old, Valerie, and Elsa herself knows best what strong concentration of