She threw her arms around her son and they embraced more warmly than they had ever done in their lives before.

A quarter of an hour later, the head forester, coming in hastily to see the old doctor, found the three in earnest conversation.  He gave Regine a look, to which she responded by saying: 

“Well, Moritz, am I still the personification of obstinacy and unreasonableness?” and she held out her hand to her brother-in-law.  But he did not take it.  Her second refusal but the week before was still fresh in his mind, and he turned to the others now, saying: 

“So you’re to be married at once, I hear?  I met Dr. Volkmar and he told me all about it, so I came over to offer our services to the bride, but as Willibald’s mother is here, there’s little for me to do.”

“Ah, your services will be heartily welcome, uncle,” said Willibald cordially.

“Well, well, I won’t be sorry to see my nephew married,” said the head forester, kindly.  “You’ve become a very romantic young man of late.  Toni’s caught the fever, too, and nothing would do but that Walldorf and she should be married at once; but I put my foot down on that.  I said the circumstances were quite different, and that I had no intention of being left all alone like a cat.”

He gave another grim look at Regine, but she went up to him and answered him cordially: 

“Come now, Moritz, don’t growl; let us be happy and without strife for once.  You see I did say yes, to my boy at least, when I found his heart was set on Marietta.”

The head forester looked at her gravely for a moment, then he seized her hand and pressed it warmly, as he said: 

“Yes, I see, Regine, and perhaps you’ll repent ere long of your no in another matter, and give a yes instead.”

The old steward of Rodeck stood in his master’s dressing-room in the Adelsberg palace.  He had come to the city to receive instructions from the prince before the latter left for the field.  Egon, who wore the uniform of his regiment, had just finished giving the old man his orders, and said, finally: 

“And keep everything in good order at Rodeck, I may possibly be able to spend a few hours there before I start, though the order to march may come any day.  How do you think I look as a soldier?”

He stood back and straightened himself as he asked the question.

He was a handsome man, and his tall, slender figure appeared to great advantage in the rich uniform which he wore.  Stadinger looked at him with eyes full of admiration.

“You’re magnificent!” he said.  “It’s a pity your highness has to go as a soldier!”

“What do you mean?  Am I not heart and soul a soldier?  Service in the field won’t be any too easy, but I’ll soon get accustomed to it.  Nothing should be difficult when it’s one’s duty.”

“No, your highness thinks a great deal about duty; that’s why you left Ostend when your honored aunt had arranged a marriage for you, so suitable in every particular, and that’s why you—­”