She sat down by the roadside and covered her face with both her hands. In a little while, however, she yielded to our entreaties, and accompanied us to the house, but without speaking a word on the way. As soon as we arrived there, she hurriedly left us and hastened to the barn. In a few moments she returned and cried out with a loud voice, "Mother, Richard is here!" The child's temperament was strangely variable. My wife was especially delighted at Richard's return. "With one exception," she said, smiling (for she could not reconcile herself to Richard's remaining unmarried), "you always did the right thing at the right time. We need both a son and a Professor. Perhaps you will be able to make Martella understand what is meant by the words State and Fatherland." She told us that Martella, who was generally so quick of apprehension, found it impossible to form any conception of those ideas, and that, naturally enough, in her present troubles, this was doubly difficult. For, even in our eyes, the events as well as the duties of that sad period seemed like a horrible enigma. It seemed as if thinking of Martella had relieved my wife from the weight of her own trouble. When I informed her of the expected arrival of Bertha and the children, her face beamed with joy. She at once repaired to the rooms that they were to occupy, and seemed, in anticipation, to enjoy the thought of entertaining those who were dearest to her. I had told my wife nothing of Annette's coming. She was, however, gifted with a prophetic insight that bordered on the marvellous. Results which to others were yet invisible were, by her, discerned with unerring foresight. She at once devoted two large rooms opening on the garden to Annette. Martella hurried about, helping to get the house in order, and seemed as if there was nothing to depress her spirits. Rothfuss complained to me that the "forest imp," as he at times called Martella, left him no peace, day or night. She wanted him to tell her why people had to be soldiers, and why there was such a thing as war; and she had abused the Prince in terms that would secure her seven years in the fortress of Illenberg, if her remarks were reported to the authorities. She had once even wanted to run off to the Prince and tell him how wicked it was to command human beings to shoot one another, and that he should, at all events, give her lover back again, for the war was nothing to Ernst or to her. Rothfuss called the professor to his assistance. Richard declined the commission, remarking that it was not necessary for every maiden to know why her lover was forced to go to the wars, and that, in the present instance, he hardly knew the reason himself.