CHAPTER XV.

We reached the forest lodge that evening with red faces and half-frozen hands and feet.  The ride through the deep snow and the bitter December wind had been a hard one; but the woods in their glittering winter shroud, the sharp, refreshing breath of the pure air, and a thousand trifling matters—­from the white hats that crowned every stock and stone to the tiny crystals of snow that fell on the green velvet of my fur-lined bodice—­were a joy to me, albeit my heart was heavy with care.  The evening star had risen or ever we reached the house; and out here, under God’s open heavens, among the giants of the forest and its sturdy, weather-beaten folk, it scarce seemed that it could be true that I should see my bright, young Ann sharing the sorry life of the Magister, an alien from all this world’s joys.  Those who dwelt out here in these wilds must, methought, feel this as I felt it; and so in truth it proved.  After I had taken my place at the hearth by my aunt’s side, and she had mingled some spiced wine for us with her own feeble hands, she bid me speak.  When she heard what it was that had brought me forth to the forest so late before Christmas, which we ever spent with our grand-uncle Im Huff she at first did but laugh at our Magister’s suit; but as soon as I told her that it was Ann’s earnest purpose to wed with him, she swore that she would never suffer such a deed of mad folly.

Master Peter had many times been her guest at the lodge; and she, though so small and feeble herself, loved to see tall and stalwart men, so that she had given him the name of “the little dry Bookworm,” hardly accounting him a man at all.  When she heard of his newly-gained wealth, she said:  “If instead of being the richer by these thousands he could but be the same number of years younger, lift a hundredweight more, and see a hundred miles further out into the world, I would not mind his seeking his happiness with that lovely child!”

As for my uncle, he did but hum a burly bass to the tune of the “Little wee wife.”  But, being called away, he turned to me before closing the door behind him, and asked me very keenly, as though he had been restraining his impatience for some space:  “And how about your brother?  How is it that this matter has come about?  Was not Herdegen pledged to marry Ann?”

Thereupon I told my aunt all I knew, and gave her Herdegen’s letter to read, which I had taken care to bring with me; and even as she read it her countenance grew dark and fearful to look upon; she set her teeth like a raging hound, and hit her little hand on the table that stood by her couch so that the cups and phials standing thereon danced and clattered.  Nay, she forgot her weakness, and made as though she would spring up, but the pain was more than she could bear and she fell back on her pillows with a groan.

She had never loved my grand-uncle Im Hoff, and, as soon as she had recovered herself, she vowed she would bring his craft to nought and likewise would let her nephew, now in Paris, know her opinion of his knavish unfaith to a sacred pledge.