wered.

"You didn't know Cousin Augustin was looking on, did you?" asked her
mother.

"No, I didn't." But it was plain that she did not care either.

I felt that Cousin Elizabeth's honest eyes were searching my face.

"Give me a kiss, won't you, Elsa?" I asked.

Elsa turned her chubby cheek up to me in a perfection of indifference.
In fact, both Elsa and I were performing family duties. Thus we kissed
for the first time.

"Now go and let nurse put on a clean frock for you," said Cousin
Elizabeth. "You're to come downstairs to-day, and you're not fit to be
seen. Don't roll any more when you've changed your frock."

Elsa smiled, shook her head, and ran off. I gathered the impression that
even in the clean frock she would roll again if she chanced to be
disposed to that exercise. The air of Bartenstein was not the air of
Artenberg. A milder climate reigned. There was no Styrian discipline for
Elsa. I believe that in all her life she did at her parents' instance
only one thing that she seriously disliked. Cousin Elizabeth and I
walked on.

"She's a baby still," said Cousin Elizabeth presently, "but I assure
you that she has begun to develop."

"There's no hurry, is there?"

"No. You know, I think you're too old for your age, Augustin. I suppose
it was inevitable."

I felt much younger in many ways than I had at fifteen; the gates of the
world were opening, and showing me prospects unknown to the lonely boy
at Artenberg.

"And she has the sweetest disposition. So loving!" said Cousin
Elizabeth.

I did not find anything appropriate to answer. The next day found me
fully, although delicately, apprised of the situation. It seemed to me a
strange one. The Duke was guarded in his hints, and profuse of
declarations that it was too soon to think of anything. Good Cousin
Elizabeth strove to conceal her eagerness and repress the haste born of
it by similar but more clumsy speeches. I spoke openly on the subject to
Vohrenlorf.

"Ah, well, even if it should be so, you have six years," he reminded me
in good-natured consolation. "And she will grow up."

"She won't roll down hills always, of course," I answered rather
peevishly.

In truth the thing would not assume an appearance of reality for me; it
was too utterly opposed to the current of my thoughts and dreams. A boy
of my age will readily contemplate marriage with a woman ten years his
senior; in regard to a child six years younger than himself the idea
seems