She goes, seriously troubled, to the dining-room, to the right of the garden-room, from the windows of which she can see for a short distance the road which leads through the wood past Grenwitz to Cona. The snow is now falling so fast that she can hardly recognize any more the edge of the spruce forest, although it is only a few hundred yards off. She opens the window and leans far out, unmindful of the flakes which fall on her dark hair and melt on her brow. Was not that a horse's hoof? There they are coming out of the forest, one, two, three dark figures: Oldenburg, the old man, and between them Julius; Almansor and Brownlocks in full trot, the pony between them at full gallop so as to keep up. Melitta waves her handkerchief and calls out, and Julius answers with a hearty Holloa! and whips the pony across the neck, whereupon the pony shakes his shaggy head indignantly and begins to race so furiously that he finally beats his long-legged rivals, after all, by the length of his own nose. The horsemen leap from their saddles. Julius runs up to the window and calls: "I was the first, after all, mamma!" "Yes," says mamma, "only make haste and come in, and tell Uncle Oldenburg not to busy himself so long with Almansor's saddle." CHAPTER IX. It was after tea. Julius had gone to bed. Old Baumann had removed the tea-things, and then gone out, casting a benevolent glance at his mistress and her visitor. Melitta and Oldenburg were alone in the "red-room." "Now tell me candidly, Adalbert, why you are so out of humor to-day," said Melitta, who sat on the sofa, while the baron was slowly walking up and down the room, as was his habit. "I am not out of humor." "Well then, troubled?" "That perhaps. I had a letter this afternoon from Birkenhain." "That is strange. I have just been writing to him this afternoon." "Have you heard from him lately?" said Oldenburg, pausing in his walk and looking kindly at Melitta. "No; why?" "Hem!" "Is that an answer?" "Certainly, and a very significative. 'Hem!' means a good deal." "In this case, for instance?" "Do you know that we were in all probability at the same time in Fichtenau when Czika and Xenobia as well as Oswald were all there, and we never knew it?" Melitta blushed deeply, and did not at once know what answer to give. Oldenburg, however, did not give her time to reply, but drew Birkenhain's letter from his pocket, sat down by the table, opposite Melitta, and said: "You see, Birkenhain writes, after having advised me, at my request, regarding Julius's health--'Julius must be spared all studying till New Year'--as follows: