There followed some very disagreeable days at Castle Eichhof, and the result was that Walter, with a heavy heart, resolved to conform to his parents' wishes, and at least to attempt the study of law. He could not see how to act otherwise at present. He must, he thought, furnish this proof of his willingness to obey, but in secret he did not relinquish the hope of one day carrying out his own plans. The Count was seriously out of sorts for a few days, but upon Walter's submission his brow cleared again, and his thoughts turned from this annoying intermezzo to the approaching Easter holidays, when he expected his two other sons at Castle Eichhof, which should once more be, as he expressed it, "the headquarters of youthful fun and frolic." "The boys must be entertained when they come home," was his watchword. The Countess had the ball-room newly decorated, and made out lists for dinner- and dancing-parties. Walter was a great deal alone in the library writing letters, and took many a lonely ride. He rode once to Rollin to invite Adela Hohenstein to ride with him, but the Baron declared that the physician had forbidden so much horseback exercise, and Adela's manner towards him was so strangely altered that, instead of confiding his grief to her as he had intended to do, he soon rode home again. "Adela is playing the young lady, I see,--she really coquetted with me to-day," he said to himself; "but I am no longer in the mood to be entertained by her upon the subject of the fashion in which her hair is dressed. If she will no longer be my good comrade, she may let it alone. These young girls are very little good after all." Still, oddly enough, he thought oftener than usual of Adela that day, and when he was occupied with the most serious plans for the future her fair curly head would intrude upon his thoughts in a most unnecessary and uncalled-for manner. "She certainly has grown extremely pretty of late,--there is no doubt of that," he thought. CHAPTER III. HIDDEN SPRINGS. Thus Easter came 'slowly up this way,' and with the holidays the 'sons' from Berlin came to Eichhof and to Rollin.