The conversation was at first desultory, interrupted by the scrambling through the bushes, and mutually offering the largest raspberries; by degrees, however, the fragrant fruit was neglected, and the flowers—even the beautiful pyrolas and sweet-scented cyclamen, gathered for and given to Major Stultz—were thoughtlessly picked to pieces, and thrown away, while she listened to Hamilton’s remarks, or answered his numerous questions. She spoke without reserve of her mode of life at school; attached a girlish importance to her former companion’s opinions and most trifling acts; complained of not having been allowed to speak during school-hours, and of being obliged to run and jump about at recreation-time, when she would rather have sat in a corner to talk to her friend Lina; of having to listen to reading when at dinner; but most of all, of having had all her long hair cut off the day of her entrance, “I was quite inconsolable about it,” she said, laughing, “and cried for several days, but Hildegarde did not care in the least; perhaps,” she added, “because she was a year older.” Hamilton thought there might be another reason—the absence of personal vanity—but, of course, he did not say so. They had been ten years at school, without ever having been allowed to spend a day at home. “So,” she continued, “we knew nothing at all of my step-mother, and very little of papa, though he used to come and see us often, and talk to Mademoiselle Hortense about us. At the examinations they generally both came, and mamma used to bring us an iced tart; but Hildegarde would rather she had stayed away, as she was ashamed of her.” “And why was she ashamed of her?” “Oh, because all the other girls had such nice mothers and aunts, and Hildegarde thinks mamma so very vulgar.” “She seems, however, a good kind of person.” “Oh, I dare say—but Hildegarde does not like good kind of persons.” “Indeed! Pray, what kind of persons does she like then?” “I don’t know whether she would like me to tell you or not.” “And I don’t think you are obliged to ask her.” “That is true; and, besides, it is no harm to like counts and barons better than other people!” “Not at all. You rather said that you had a fancy of the same kind yourself, a few days ago.” “Yes—I confess I should like to be a _von_, or a baroness, or a countess—but still there is a difference, for _I_ am afraid of fine people, and Hildegarde likes them; I saw her getting books from Baroness Z—, and speaking to those proud Zedwitzes, the other day.” “You think it, then, probable that she rather likes the attention of Count Zedwitz?”