When the party assembled again at breakfast, an attentive observer might have read in the behavior of its various members the different things which were passing in their inner thoughts and feelings.  The Count and the Baroness met with the air of happiness which a pair of lovers feel, who, after having been forced to endure a long separation, have mutually assured each other of their unaltered affection.  On the other hand, Charlotte and Edward equally came into the presence of the Captain and Ottilie with a sense of shame and remorse.  For such is the nature of love that it believes in no rights except its own, and all other rights vanish away before it.  Ottilie was in child-like spirits.  For her—­she was almost what might be called open.  The Captain appeared serious.  His conversation with the Count, which had roused in him feelings that for some time past had been at rest and dormant, had made him only too keenly conscious that here he was not fulfilling his work, and at bottom was but squandering himself in a half-activity of idleness.

Hardly had their guests departed, when fresh visitors were announced—­to Charlotte most welcomely, all she wished for being to be taken out of herself, and to have her attention dissipated.  They annoyed Edward, who was longing to devote himself to Ottilie; and Ottilie did not like them either; the copy which had to be finished the next morning early being still incomplete.  They staid a long time, and immediately that they were gone she hurried off to her room.

It was now evening.  Edward, Charlotte, and the Captain had accompanied the strangers some little way on foot, before the latter got into their carriage, and previous to returning home they agreed to take a walk along the water-side.

A boat had come, which Edward had had fetched from a distance, at no little expense; and they decided that they would try whether it was easy to manage.  It was made fast on the bank of the middle pond, not far from some old ash trees on which they calculated to make an effect in their future improvements.  There was to be a landing-place made there, and under the trees a seat was to be raised, with some wonderful architecture about it:  it was to be the point for which people were to make when they went across the water.

“And where had we better have the landing-place on the other side?” said Edward.  “I should think under my plane trees.”

“They stand a little too far to the right,” said the Captain.  “You are nearer the castle if you land further down.  However, we must think about it.”

The Captain was already standing in the stern of the boat, and had taken up an oar.  Charlotte got in, and Edward with her—­he took the other oar; but as he was on the point of pushing off, he thought of Ottilie—­he recollected that this water-party would keep him out late; who could tell when he would get back?  He made up his mind shortly and promptly; sprang back to the bank, and reaching the other oar to the Captain, hurried home—­making excuses to himself as he ran.