at hand? Do you suppose
that Herr Rossel, or the baron, or I myself, would suffer any one to
ill-treat our little Zenz? If you could only hear the old gentleman
talk, and see how sorry he is for all he did and did not do for his
daughter, and how anxious he is to atone for it to his grandchild! No,
Zenz, you are too sensible a girl to be so childishly frightened by the
spectres your own imagination has called up. And, besides, what do you
think is going to become of you when the summer is over and we all go
back into the city again?"

He waited a moment for her answer. But as none came, and she seemed to
be lost in thought, he drew a step nearer, and, taking one of her
hands, said, in his truehearted way:

"I know what you are thinking, my child. You are in love with the
baron, and you are thinking you will remain near him as long as it is
possible, and then perhaps he will love you in return; and you have no
thought for anything else. But you ought also to tell yourself how
miserably it must all end at last. He won't marry you--you must make up
your mind to that--and what will be the upshot of such an unhappy love
you have seen, unfortunately, in the case of your poor mother."

She withdrew her hand from his; but looked at him quietly, and almost
with something of her old light-heartedness.

"You mean well by me, sir," she said. "But I am not so foolish as I may
look. I never imagined for a moment that he would marry me; he wouldn't
even love me, no, not if I had saved his life and should be near him
ever so long. He loves some one else--I know that for certain--and I
don't blame him for it a bit, and if I choose to go on liking him, in
spite of all that, it is my affair, and nothing that anybody says will
make any difference. Until he is well again, and can get up and go
about, I am going to stay out here; and no one knows better than you
that I don't eat my bread in idleness, and that you are not able to get
along without me. Just tell this to my--to the old gentleman; and as to
what may happen afterward, why, that is something none of us can tell
yet. But I won't let myself be caught, and if he should use force--I
would jump into the lake sooner than let myself be made a slave of!"

She turned sharply on her heel and began very calmly to walk up the
hill, no longer as if to flee, but merely because she had spoken her
last word. Schnetz had always had a secret liking for her, though he
had no very high opinion o