s an enchantingly beautiful woman upon
whose phenomenal charms _her_ Ludwig came up here to feast his eyes. The
faithless one!

Ludwig was going to speak, but Marie laid her hand against his lips, and
turned again to the telescope. The "green-eyed monster" wanted to see
some more!

Suddenly her face brightened; a joyful smile wreathed her lips. She
seized Ludwig's hand, and exclaimed, in a voice that sounded like a sigh
of relief:

"What you told me was true, after all! You did not want to deceive me."

"What do you see?" asked Ludwig.

"I see the water-monster that frightened me. I believed that you
invented a fable and had it printed in that book in order to deceive me.
And now I see the creature over yonder with the beautiful lady. She
called to him, and he came walking on his hands and feet. Now he is
standing upright. How ridiculous the poor thing looks in his red
clothes! He does n't want to keep on his hat, and persists in wanting to
walk on all fours like a poodle. Dear heaven! what a kind lady she must
be to have so much patience with him!"

Then she rose suddenly from the telescope, flung her arms around
Ludwig's neck, and began to sob. Her warm tears moistened the young
man's face; but they were not tears of grief.

Very soon she ceased sobbing, and smiled through her tears.

"I am so thankful I came up here! You will let me come again, won't you,
Ludwig? I will come only when you ask me. And to-morrow we will resume
our swimming excursions. You will come with me in the canoe, won't you?"

Ludwig assented, and the child skipped, humming cheerily, down the tower
stairs; and the whole day long the old castle echoed with her merry
singing.

CHAPTER III

And why should not Baroness Landsknechtsschild take observations with a
telescope, as well as her neighbor at the Nameless Castle?

She could very easily do so unnoticed. From the outside of a house, when
it is light, one cannot see what is going on in a dark room.

This question Count Vavel was given an opportunity to decide.

The astronomical calendar had announced a total eclipse of the moon on a
certain night in July. The moon would enter the shadow at ten o'clock,
and reach full obscuration toward midnight.

Ludwig had persuaded Marie to observe the phenomenon with him; and the
young girl was astonished beyond measure when she beheld for the first
time the full moon through the telescope.

Ludwig explained to her that the large, b