There was a tap at her window, and she started up as if from a dream. It was the young vulture which she had taken two years before from the nest, and which was as faithfully attached to her as a dog. She could leave him quite free, he never hurt anyone, and flew after her with his clipped wings as best he could. She opened the little window, he slipped in and looked trustingly at her with his yellow eyes. She scratched his neck gently and played with his strong wings, now spreading them out, now folding them together again. A cool air blew in through the open window. The sun had already sunk low behind the mountains, the narrow casement framed the peaceful picture of the mountain tops veiled in blue mist. In herself too all grew more peaceful; the evening air revived her spirit. She took the bird on her shoulder. "Come, Hans," she said, "we are doing nothing, as though there were no work in the world." The faithful bird had brought her wonderful comfort. She had taken it for her own from the steep cliff where no one else would venture; she had fought its mother for life or death, she had tamed it and it belonged wholly to her. "And he will also one day be mine," said an inward voice, as she clasped the bird to her bosom. CHAPTER II. Unbending. This was the short story of love and sorrow, whose pain even now awoke again in the young heart as she looked down into the valley, thinking to see Joseph who so often passed along it, and never found the way up to her. She wiped her forehead, for the sun was beginning to burn, and she had already mowed the whole meadow-land from the house up to the "Sonnenplatte;" so the point on which she stood was called, because rising high above all around, it ever caught the earliest rays of the morning sun. From it the village took its name. "Wally, Wally," some one now called from behind her, "come to thy father, he's something to say to thee," and old Luckard came towards her from the house. Her father had sent for her? What could he want? Never since their adventure in Sölden had he spoken with her excepting of what concerned the day's work. Wavering between fear and reluctance she rose and followed the old woman. "What does he want?" she asked. "Great news," said Luckard, "look there!" Wally looked, and saw her father standing before the house, and with him a young peasant of the place named Vincenz, with a big nosegay in his button hole. He was a dark, robust fellow whom Wally had known from her childhood as a reserved and stubborn man. He had never bestowed a kindly word on anyone but Wally, to whom from her school-days upwards he had shown a special goodwill. A few months previously both his parents had died within a short time of each other; now he was independent, and next to Stromminger the richest peasant in the country side. The blood stood still in Wally's veins, for she already knew what was coming.