“How soberly you say it, grandpapa,” cried Marietta, springing up and drawing her little slender figure to its full height, as she said, with an assumption of great dignity: 

“For the past five months a member of the renowned and worshipful Ducal Court theatre, a person in a responsible position and worthy of all honor.  Hats off, gentlemen!”

A member of the Court theatre company!  Willibald drew himself together, as it were, when he heard the fatal words.  The well trained son of his mother, he had a great abhorrence for all actors and actresses.  He stepped unwittingly, three steps back, and stared in amazement at the young lady who had just made so startling and so frightful an announcement.  She laughed out loud as he did so.

“Oh, you need not manifest so much respect for me, Herr von Eschenhagen, I will permit you to stand by the piano.  Has Toni never told you that I belong to the theatre?”

“Toni?  No!” stammered Willibald, greatly disconcerted.  “But she is waiting for me.  I must go to Fuerstenstein.  I have stayed here much too long already.”

“How extremely polite,” laughed the girl, with a good-natured sneer.  “It is not very polite to us, but where your bride is, there should you be also.”

“Yes, and with my mother, too,” said Will, who had a feeling that something dreadful was threatening him, and to whom his mother seemed a protecting angel.  “I beg your pardon, but I have been here much too long already.”

He stopped abruptly, remembering that he had said these words once before, but as none better offered themselves to his disturbed brain he repeated them for the third time.

Marietta was half dead from suppressed laughter.  Dr. Volkmar declared, most courteously, that he would not think of detaining his guest a second longer, and begged him to give his compliments to the head forester and to Fraeulein von Schoenau.

The young man scarcely heard him; he reached for his hat, muttering some word of farewell, and was off without delay.  He had but one thought, and that was to get away as quickly as possible.  The good-natured, scarcely restrained laughter confused him greatly.

When the doctor returned, after having accompanied Willibald to the door, he found his grandchild half suffocated with laughter, while the tears were rolling down her cheeks.

“I don’t believe that lover of Toni’s is quite right here,” she said, as she tapped her forehead with her finger.  “First, he carried my satchel and was as dumb as a fish; then he thawed out a little when I sang, and now he is off on a run to Fuerstenstein and his mother, before I have a chance even to send Toni a message”

The doctor smiled, but it was a pained smile.  He had observed this stranger more closely than Marietta, and knew only too well what caused the sudden and great anxiety to get away from the house.

“Evidently the young man is not much accustomed to ladies’ society,” he answered evasively; “he’s under his mother’s thumb apparently, but he seems to please his sweetheart, and that’s the main thing.”