With this she walked slowly across to the window.  She stood there looking out, and every one in the room was watching.  On looking for the first time on the same view, a few moments earlier, Maggie had uttered a little cry of surprise, and had then remained silent.  Etta looked out of the window and said nothing.  It was a most singular out-look—­weird, uncouth, prehistoric, as some parts of the earth still are.  The castle was built on the edge of a perpendicular cliff.  On this side it was impregnable.  Any object dropped from the breakfast-room window would fall a clear two hundred feet to the brawling Oster River.  The rock was black, and shining like the topmost crags of an Alpine mountain where snow and ice have polished the bare stone.  Beyond and across the river lay the boundless steppe—­a sheet of virgin snow.

Etta stood looking over this to the far horizon, where the white snow and the gray sky softly merged into one.  Her first remark was characteristic, as first and last remarks usually are.

“And as far as you can see is yours?” she asked.

“Yes,” answered Paul simply, with that calm which only comes with hereditary possession.

The observation attracted Steinmetz’s attention.  He went to another window, and looked across the waste critically.

“Four times as far as we can see is his,” he said.

Etta looked out slowly and comprehensively, absorbing it all like a long, sweet drink.  There was no hereditary calmness in her sense of possession.

“And where is Thors?” she asked.

Paul stretched out his arm, pointing with a lean, steady finger: 

“It lies out there,” he answered.

Another of the little incidents that are only half forgotten.  Some of the persons assembled in that room remembered the pointing finger long afterward.

“It makes one feel very small,” said Etta, turning to the breakfast-table—­“at no time a pleasant sensation.  Do you know,” she said, after a little pause, “I think it probable that I shall become very fond of Osterno, but I wish it was nearer to civilization.”

Paul looked pleased.  Steinmetz had a queer expression on his face.  Maggie murmured something about one’s surroundings making but little difference to one’s happiness, and the subject was wisely shelved.

After breakfast Steinmetz withdrew.

“Now,” said Paul, “shall I show you the old place, you and Maggie?”

Etta signified her readiness, but Maggie said that she had letters to write, that Etta could show her the castle another time, when the men were out shooting, perhaps.

“But,” said Etta, “I shall do it horribly badly.  They are not my ancestors, you know.  I shall attach the stories to the wrong people, and locate the ghost in the wrong room.  You will be wise to take Paul’s guidance.”

“No, thank you,” replied Maggie, quite firmly and frankly.  “I feel inclined to write; and the feeling is rare, so I must take advantage of it.”