He starts. These words have not come from the phantom of the object-glass, but from a living being that stands by his side--Marie. The count sprang to his feet, surprised and embarrassed, unable to say a word. Marie, however, did not wait for him to speak, but said with eager inquisitiveness: "What are you looking at through that great pipe?" Before Ludwig could turn the glass in another direction, the little maid had taken his seat, and was gazing, with a wilful smile on her lips, through the "great pipe." The smile gradually faded from her lips as she viewed the world revealed by the telescope--the beautiful woman over yonder amid her flowers, her form encircled by the nimbus of rainbow hues. When she withdrew her eye from the glass, her face betrayed the new emotion which had taken possession of her. The lengthened features, the half-opened lips, the contracted brows, the half-closed eyes, all these betrayed--Ludwig was perfectly familiar with the expression--jealousy. Marie had discovered that there was an enchantingly beautiful woman upon whose phenomenal charms _her_ Ludwig came up here to feast his eyes. The faithless one! Ludwig was going to speak, but Marie laid her hand against his lips, and turned again to the telescope. The "green-eyed monster" wanted to see some more! Suddenly her face brightened; a joyful smile wreathed her lips. She seized Ludwig's hand, and exclaimed, in a voice that sounded like a sigh of relief: "What you told me was true, after all! You did not want to deceive me." "What do you see?" asked Ludwig. "I see the water-monster that frightened me. I believed that you invented a fable and had it printed in that book in order to deceive me. And now I see the creature over yonder with the beautiful lady. She called to him, and he came walking on his hands and feet. Now he is standing upright. How ridiculous the poor thing looks in his red clothes! He does n't want to keep on his hat, and persists in wanting to walk on all fours like a poodle. Dear heaven! what a kind lady she must be to have so much patience with him!" Then she rose suddenly from the telescope, flung her arms around Ludwig's neck, and began to sob. Her warm tears moistened the young man's face; but they were not tears of grief. Very soon she ceased sobbing, and smiled through her tears. "I am so thankful I came up here! You will let me come again, won't you, Ludwig? I will come only when you ask me. And to-morrow we will resume our swimming excursions. You will come with me in the canoe, won't you?" Ludwig assented, and the child skipped, humming cheerily, down the tower stairs; and the whole day long the old castle echoed with her merry singing. CHAPTER III And why should not Baroness Landsknechtsschild take observations with a telescope, as well as her neighbor at the Nameless Castle? She could very easily do so unnoticed. From the outside of a house, when it is light, one cannot see what is going on in a dark room.