urned to me with a fierce and frowning countenance.

"And now, Monsieur, I have the honour to ask you to explain all this!"

I stood silent, amazed, aghast. There was in me no speech, nor reason.
Yet I had the sense to be silent, lest I should say something maladroit.

A confidential servant brought a despatch. The Count impatiently flung
it open, glanced at it, then read it carefully twice. He seemed much
struck with the contents.

"I am summoned to Milan," he said, "and upon the instant. I shall yet
overtake my sister. May I ask Monsieur to have the goodness to await me
here that I may receive his explanations? I shall return immediately."

"You may depend that I shall wait," I said.

The Count bowed, and sprang upon the horse which his servant had saddled
for him.

But the Count did not immediately return, and we waited in vain. No
letter came to me. No communication to the manager of the hostel. The
Count had simply ridden out of sight over the pass through which the
Thal wind brought the fog-spume. He had melted like the mist, and, so
far as we were concerned, there was an end. We waited here till the
second snow fell, hardened, and formed its sleighing crust.

Then we went, for some society to Henry, over to the mountain village of
Bergsdorf, which strings itself along the hillside above the River Inn.

Bergsdorf is no more than a village in itself, but, being the chief
place of its neighbourhood, it supports enough municipal and other
dignitaries to set up an Imperial Court. Never was such wisdom--never
such pompous solemnity. The Burgomeister of Bergsdorf was a great
elephant of a man. He went abroad radiating self-importance. He
perspired wisdom on the coldest day. The other officials imitated the
Burgomeister in so far as their corporeal condition allowed. The _cure_
only was excepted. He was a thin, spare man with an ascetic face and a
great talent for languages. One day during service he asked a mother to
carry out a crying child, making the request in eight languages. Yet the
mother failed to understand till the limping old apparator led her out
by the arm.

There is no doubt that the humours of Bergsdorf lightened our spirits
and cheered our waiting; for it is my experience that a young man is
easily amused with new, bright, and stirring things even when he is in
love.

And what amused us most was that excellent sport--now well known to the
world, but then practised only in the mountain village