"Philip? He will handle any horse that ever stepped, as quiet as he looks," said Franz as he put the bridle into Philip's hands.—"There, my boy! Good luck go with you!—There goes as fine a young fellow as ever stepped on shoe-leather," he added as Philip rode away. "Not a bit of show or bravado about him, but always prompt and ready for action, whatever it may be. His father was just so before him." Philip made his journey in two days and part of another, and arrived at Waldeck in the afternoon. He put up his horse at a decent little inn, and after taking some refreshment and getting rid of the soil of the journey, he asked his way to Herr von Falkenstein's house. "You have but to follow your nose up the street and you come to the gates as soon as you cross the bridge," answered the host. "The old Herr is at home, I know, for I saw him this very day." Philip found his way easily enough; and accosting the first domestic he met, he made known to him his desire to speak with his master. "And who are you who desire to see the Herr?" asked the man, with some insolence. "Do you think he is to be at the beck and call of every booby, like a country doctor?" "I have a letter and message for him from Count Maurice of Nassau," answered Philip, keeping his temper, though the man's manner was sufficiently provoking. "Well, give them to me, and I will deliver them." "With your allowance, no. I was to put the letter into the Herr's own hands." "Yes, that is a likely story. Give me the letter if you have one, or I will have you chased off the place." "Or be chased off yourself," said a tall, gray-haired old man who had been an unseen spectator, stepping forward from behind a screen. "Who is this to whom you use such threats without your master's knowledge?" The servant looked blank and crestfallen enough. "It is—it is only a country-fellow, Your Excellency," he stammered. "He pretends to have a letter for Your Excellency, and I thought Your Excellency would not care to be troubled, if Your Excellency pleases." "My Excellency will please to lay my cane about your ears some day," said the gray-haired man, whom Philip at once guessed to be Von Falkenstein himself.—"What are your name and business, young man?" "My name is Philip Reinhart, and I have a letter from Count Maurice to Your Excellency," answered Philip, quietly as usual, though his heart was beating so as almost to stop his breath. "Reinhart? Reinhart? I should know the name," said the old gentleman, musingly. He broke the seal of the note, which Philip handed him, and glanced over it. "Yes, yes, I understand," said he, kindly. "I thought I knew the name, and the face also, I might say, for you are very like your father. I remember him well. But this is not the place to talk of such matters. Follow me."