"Oh, that I could leave it alone! You are right; this scoffing tone is horrid. Yet it is a means of defence against the world, and those who have learned to know it, at home and abroad, use it, and it becomes a habit to them; but here, where such sweetly-charming innocence encounters me in the shadow of the tall forest trees, here I might adopt another tone, as I feel my heart also is quite different. Truly, I feel as if in a fairy tale! If there were still enchanted princesses, I should believe I had found one here, and I am already looking round for the monster that guards you, so that in knightly combat I may release you from the dragon; I have an incomparable weapon; my bullet will penetrate through any scaly armour." "But we are talking too long, my Herr," said Eva, rising. "Excuse me, but my friends are expecting me." "Then, of course, I must retire," replied the sportsman, as he stepped respectfully on one side. Eva bowed pleasantly, and followed the path which led into the valley. "May I ask, my Fräulein, where you wish to go?" said the stranger's voice, behind her; "on this road you would go still farther into the forest! That, indeed, confirms my idea that you dwell in some invisible fairy-palace, as queen of this wood, or that you are, after all, only a flower-spirit, that will float away to dance in the air with elves." "I am, indeed, quite confused," said Eva, turning back. "Yonder lies the hill, with the weeping willows, and yet I hardly even know by which road I reached it! My friends will be seeking me; they will be uneasy about me! The sun already begins to glow with evening's red, between the tree-stems from the west, instead of beaming above their heads." "If you really belong to mortal beings, my Fräulein, and even to the most prosaic class of them, who are known under the name of seaside visitors--" "Now you are right, my Herr!" "And if you will initiate me into the secret of the point whence you commenced this solitary wandering in the wood, I will guide you to the right road." Eva told the name of the forest-house where her friends were resting. "Then you must confide yourself to my unwelcome companionship." "I am grateful to you, my Herr!" "Oh, is it not a little adventure for you to wander through this wilderness, accompanied by a gentleman, who happily no longer can be accounted a young one. I certainly have experienced adventures enough in teak and palm groves, with tigers and crocodiles, and have wandered through forests with brown and black beauties, while apes and parrots looked on enviously; but to tell the truth, this nice little adventure in the Royal Prussian chase has a greater charm for me than the encounters with beauties who shine in native brown like old mahogany." They were now passing by the hill. The heather, which grew wild upon it, was bathed in the evening's crimson, which also flooded the quivering bowed branches of the weeping willows.