people judge," said the old lady, smiling.

"It may be, aunt," said Anna Maria, and put the letter in her pocket. She had begun to spin again, when an old woman in a dazzlingly white apron entered the room.

"Gracious Fräulein," she began respectfully, yet familiarly, "Marieken is off, and has made a great commotion in the house, and the eldest of the Weber girls has just applied for the place, but she asks for twelve thaler for wages and a jacket at Christmas!"

"Ten thaler, and Christmas according to the way she conducts herself," Anna Maria replied, without looking up.

The housekeeper disappeared, but returned after awhile.

"Eleven thaler and a jacket, Fräulein; she will not come otherwise," she reported. "You can surely give her that; she has no lover, and will hardly get one, for she is already well on in years, and——"

Anna Maria drew a purse from her pocket, and laid an eight-groschen piece on the table. "The advance-money, Brockelmann; do you know that Gottlieb wishes to leave?"

"Oh, dear, yes, Fräulein." The old woman was quite embarrassed. "I am sorry; he doted upon the lass at one time, and at last—oh, heavens, fräulein, one has been young too, and if two people love each other—see, Fräulein, it is just as if one had drunk deadly hemlock. I mean no offence, but you will know it yet some day, and, if God will, may the handsomest and best man in the world come to Bütze and take you home!"

The old woman had spoken affectingly, and looked at her young mistress with brightening eyes. Only she would have dared to touch on this point. She had been Anna Maria's nurse, and a remnant of tenderness toward her was still hidden somewhere in the girl's heart.

"Brockelmann, you cannot keep from talking," she cried, serenely. "You know I shall never marry. What would the master do without me? Is supper ready?"

"The master!" said the good woman, without regarding the last question. "He ought to marry too! As if it were not high time for him; he will be thirty-three years old at Martinmas!"

CHAPTER II.

A few days afterward Edwin Stürmer came to Bütze. Anna Maria was standing just on the lower staircase landing, in the great stone-paved entrance-hall, a basket of red-cheeked apples on her arm, and Brockelmann stood near her with a candle in her hand. The unsteady light of the flickering candle fell on the immediate surroundings, and, like an old picture of Rembrandt's, the fair head of the girl stood out from the darkness of the wide hall. Round about her there was a great hue and cry; all the children of the village seemed to be collected there, and sang with a sort of scream, to a monotonous air, the old Martinmas ditty:

They were just beginning a new song when the heavy entrance-door opened, and Baron Stürmer came in. Anna Maria did not see him at once, for, according to an old custom of St. Martin's Eve, she was throwing a handful of apples right among the little band, who pounced upon them with cries and shouts. Only when a man's head rose up straight before her, by the heavily carved banister, she glanced up, and looked into a pale face framed by dark hair and beard, and into a pair of shining brown eyes.

For an instant Anna Maria was startled, and a blush of embarrassment spread over her face; then she held out her hand to him and bade him welcome. Far from youthful was her manner of speaking and acting.

"Be still!" she called, in her ringing voice, to the noisy children; and as silence immediately ensued, she added, turning to Stürmer: "They are meeting me on important business, Herr von Stürmer, but I shall be ready to leave at once; will you go up to Klaus for awhile?"

He kept on looking at her, still holding her right hand; he had not heard what she said at all. With quick impatience, at length she withdrew her hand.

"Brockelmann, bring the candle here, and take the gentleman to my brother," she ordered; but then, as if changing her mind, she threw the whole basketful of apples at once among the children, who scrambled for them, screaming wildly. The baron made his way with difficulty through the groping throng to the stairs, where Anna Maria was now standing motionless, and with earnest gaze regarding the man who in her childhood had so often held her in his arms, and had so many a kind word for her.

Yes, it was he again; the slender figure of medium height, the dark face with the flashing eyes—and yet how different!

Anna Maria had to admit to herself that it was a handsome man who was coming up the steps just then; and old? She had to smile. "One sees quite differently with a child's eyes!" she said to herself. Was it not as if years were blotted out, and he was coming up as in the old times, to hold her fast by her braids and say, "Don't run so, Anna Maria"?

Silently up the stairs they went together, to the top, their steps reëchoing from the walls.

It really seemed now to Anna Maria as if her childhood had returned, the sweet, remote childhood, with a thousand bright, innocent hours. Involuntarily she held out to him her slender hand, and he seized it quickly and forced the maiden to stand still. The sound of the children's shouting came indistinctly to them up here; there was no one beside them in the dim corridor.

Words of pleasure at seeing the friend of her childhood again trembled on Anna Maria's lips, but when she tried to speak the man's eyes met hers, and her mouth remained closed. Slowly, and still looking at her, he drew the slender hand to his lips; she allowed it as if in a dream, then hastily caught her hand away.

"What is that?" she asked, half in jest, half in anger; "I gave you my hand because I was glad to greet the uncle of my childhood, and an uncle——"

"May not kiss one's hand," he supplied, a smile flitting over his face. Anna Maria did not see it, having stepped forward into the sitting-room. "A visitor, Klaus!" she called into the room, which was still dark.

"Ah!" at once replied a man's voice. "Stürmer, is it you? Welcome, welcome! You find us quite in the dark. We were just talking of you, and of old times; were we not, Aunt Rosamond?"

A merry greeting followed, an invitation to supper was given and accepted, and Klaus von Hegewitz called for lights.

"Oh, let us chat a little longer in the dark," said Aunt Rosamond. "Who knows but we should seem stranger to each other if a candle were lighted? Does it not seem, cher baron, as if it were yesterday that you were sitting here with us, and yet——"

"It is ten years ago, Stürmer," finished Klaus.

"Truly!" assented Stürmer, "ten years!"

"Oh, but how happy we have been here," the old lady ran on. "Do you remember, Stürmer, how you carried me off once in the most festive manner, in a sleigh, and on the way the mad idea came to you to drive on past our godfather's, and then you landed us both so softly in the deepest snow-drift—me in my best dress, the green brocade, you know, that you always called my parrot's costume?"

Klaus laughed heartily. "À propos, Stürmer," he asked, "have you seen Anna Maria yet?"

"Yes, indeed, I have already had the honor, on the landing down-stairs," replied the baron.

"The honor? Heavens, how ceremonious! Did you hear, dear?" asked the brother. But no answer came. "Anna Maria!" he then called.

"She is not