re else? If one thought of all
these possibilities one would never stir from home."

"And you know my maid is ready to follow me as soon as I quite settle
where we shall stay," I said. "I shall not be alone more than
four-and-twenty hours. Of course it would have been nonsense to bring
Lina with us; she would have been quite out of her element during our
walking expeditions."

"And I have a very civil note from the inn at Silberbach, the 'Katze,'"
said Herr von Walden, pulling a mass of heterogeneous-looking papers
out of his pocket. "Where can it be? Not that it matters; he will have
supper and beds ready for us to-morrow night. And then," he went on to
me, "if you like it you can make some arrangement for the time you wish
to stay, if not you can return here, or go on to any place that takes
your fancy. We, my wife and I and these boys, _must_ be home by Saturday
afternoon, so we can only stay the one night at Silberbach," for this
was Thursday.

And so it was settled.

The next day dawned as bright and cloudless as its predecessors. The
gentlemen had started--I should be afraid to say how early--meaning to
be overtaken by us at Ulrichsthal. Reggie had gone to bed with the firm
intention of accompanying them, but as it was not easy to wake him
and get him up in time to eat his breakfast, and be ready when the
_Einspaenner_ came round to the door, my predictions that he would be
too sleepy for so early a start proved true.

It was pleasant in the early morning--pleasanter than it would be later
in the day. I noticed an unusual amount of blue haze on the distant
mountain-tops, for the road along which we were driving was open on all
sides for some distance, and the view was extensive.

"That betokens great heat, I suppose," I said, pointing out the
appearance I observed to my companion.

"I suppose so. That bluish mist probably increases in hot and sultry
weather," she said. "But it is always to be seen more or less in this
country, and is, I believe, peculiar to some of the German hill and
forest districts. I don't know what it comes from--whether it has to do
with the immense number of pines in the forests, perhaps. Some one, I
think, once told me that it indicates the presence of a great deal of
electricity in the air, but I am far too ignorant to know if that is
true or not."

"And I am far too ignorant to know what the effect would be if it were
so," I said. "It is a very healthy country, is it not?"

"