It was terrible to think that the squirrels had to be shot. Lilly almost hated the old man when he sallied forth, his pea-rifle under his jacket, with evil intent against the jolly little marauders--Haberland maintained the vermin recognised his gun and scurried off when they saw it. The magpies and jays were no friends of his, either. His love was the shy, green woodpecker, whom he had actually coaxed into nesting in the park. And that gay marvel of a bird, the hoopoe, came without fear at any hour of the day to the back of the castle, where it sang its hututu and transfixed the insects in the grass with its curved sabre of a bill. Those were mornings full of glow and brilliance, such as could not have been since the creation of the world. When you opened the door at five o'clock in the morning the cool purple mist crept in and folded itself about your body like a royal mantle. On the pond, where the reeds rose up over night, pushed by underground powers, lay sunlit vapours, which gradually lifted and ascended heavenward. Everything steamed. Sometimes white lights seemed to have been kindled on the lawn, and the little clouds in evaporating rolled heavily from the glistening campions, as though surfeited with the dew they had drunk. Such mornings! Who can describe the mad delight of the dogs when their beautiful young mistress appeared on the steps smiling, clad in a white blouse and short skirt and armed with garden shears? They had been awaiting her there a long time, every now and then emitting short, impatient sounds, half whine, half yelp. For _they_ had not hesitated an instant to recognise her absolute rule, in utter disregard of the pitying benevolence with which Miss von Schwertfeger--whom they detested--stood by and smiled. Bebel, the terrier, the cleverest of all, did not count, because he sped after the colonel on his early cross-country gallop. But there was Pluto, the long-eared setter, who, out of employment at this season, gave chase to the rabbits on his own account. There were Schnauzl, the poodle, and Bobbie, the dachs, living in constant feud with each other for the first place in Lilly's favour. Dearest of all was Regina, the panther-like Great Dane, one of whose forelegs had been broken. As if to apologize for her disgraced existence, she always crept back of anyone she met; but at night, to compensate, she was untiring in her watchfulness, and maintained a steady reign of terror. Who can describe the joyous caracoling of the colts in the pasture, the craving for love the yearling manifested when the mistress, who always carried sugar with her, pushed back the bars, and stretched her arms to caress the slender heads of her favourites?