"Why, does the baron nowadays take an interest in farming? That is something entirely new," said Anna Maria. "Entirely new, madame," affirmed Baron Barnewitz; "the very last news, ha, ha, ha! since his return from his travels; that is to say, about a fortnight. I think he will be crazy next." "Or marry your cousin Melitta," said the baroness, smiling. "Perhaps that would be the same thing," suggested Hortense. "But, dear Hortense, you ought not to be so satirical," said the baroness, threatening the satirical blonde with her uplifted finger jestingly. "Are jealous; you are jealous!" cried Baron Barnewitz. "You have always envied her her beaux, because she has one for every finger." "It is a great art to be attended by gentlemen, if one leaves no means of coquetry unused," said Hortense, dropping her cloak far enough to show her white shoulders. "Well, it is not quite as bad as that," replied her husband. Hortense shrugged her white shoulders. "Bad is a relative idea. Melitta has given so much ground for gossip in her life that people are not so very strict with her." "But that might be the case with Baron Oldenburg too," said Anna Maria. "Possibly," said Hortense. "I do not know Baron Oldenburg well enough----" The fox-hunter saw himself compelled to pull out his handkerchief, and to blow his nose furiously. "Not well enough," repeated Hortense, who probably discovered some connection between her words and the violent blowing of her husband's nose; "but, if he can get over Melitta's last affair, he must, indeed, be very tolerant." "Last affair!" said moral Anna Maria, raising her eyebrows; "why, I had not heard of anything!" "Gossip, madame, gossip!" said Barnewitz, who remembered that Melitta was his first cousin, and that he had, as a boy of seventeen, worshipped the beautiful girl of twelve. "Nothing but the gossip of a set of old women." "Old women often have very useful, sharp eyes," remarked Hortense, examining attentively the stucco ornaments of the ceiling. "You make me very curious," said Anna Maria, sitting down comfortably in the sofa-corner. "It is nonsense, madame, I assure you," said Barnewitz, angrily. "A couple of old women from our village, who were stealing wood at night in the Berkow forest--at least I cannot see how else they could have been there--say that Melitta has had secret interviews in her little forest cottage with--Heaven knows whom!" "Why, that is quite a piquant story," said Anna Maria. "Yes; and what makes it still more piquant," said Hortense, her eyes still busy at the ceiling, "is this: that the Heaven knows who always came by the road from Grenwitz, and always went back again the same way!" Anna Maria's eyes opened as wide as they possibly could when she heard this statement. "When is that reported to have taken place?" she asked, with severity, "I will not hope----"