been bidden were carried out to the letter. Antonie von Schönau plighted
her troth to her cousin, the heir of Burgsdorf.

The young people had known their parents' plan for years, and were fully
agreed as to its accomplishment. Willibald subscribed like a dutiful
son, to his mother's opinion that she was the suitable person to choose
his life's companion for him, and he had waited patiently her pleasure
as to the time when his betrothal should become an accomplished fact;
the thought of having his little cousin Toni for a wife was very
pleasant to him. He had known her since childhood, and she suited him
exactly. She was a girl absolutely bereft of romance, and Willibald knew
she would make no sentimental demands upon him, to which he, with the
best will in the world, had not the temperament to respond. Toni, for
her part, possessed that good taste for which Frau Regine had given her
credit. Will pleased her very well, and the prospect of being mistress
of Burgsdorf pleased her still better--in short, everything was as it
should be.

The newly betrothed pair were at the piano in the drawing-room, and Toni
was entertaining her lover with music, not voluntarily, however, but at
her father's request, for she herself considered music a wearisome and
superfluous accomplishment. But the head forester had insisted that his
daughter should show she was not educated in housewifery alone, but had
learned something at boarding-school as well. He was walking to and fro
on the terrace with his sister-in-law now; they had come there to listen
to the music, and discuss for the hundredth time the happiness and
prospects of their children. They had, as usual, soon drifted away from
pleasant topics and their contention was growing fiercer each moment.

"I really don't know what to think of you, Moritz," said Frau von