Willibald. Now that she knew he was her dear Toni's lover, she treated
him with all the familiarity and freedom of an old friend. She asked
question after question about Toni and the head forester, and her tongue
went on without rest or intermission.

To the young man who sat so silent and listened so eagerly, the girl's
pleasant, bird-like chatter was quite bewildering. He had met the doctor
on the previous day at Fürstenstein and had heard some talk of a certain
Marietta who was a friend of his fiancée. Who or what she was, or from
whence she came, he did not know, for Toni had not been very
communicative on that occasion.

"And to think of this excited child leaving you standing at the back
door, while she came in to play and sing to decoy me from my study,"
said Dr. Volkmar shaking his head. "That was very impolite, Marietta,
very impolite indeed."

The young girl laughed merrily, and shook her short, curly hair.

"O, Herr von Eschenhagen has not taken it amiss. But as he only heard a
bar or two of your favorite song, I think the least I can do is to sing
it all for him now."

And without waiting for an answer, she seated herself at the piano, and
again the clear, silvery voice with its bird-like notes, broke forth on
the evening air. She sang an old, simple ballad, but with such
expression, such pathos and sweetness, that a bright spring sunlight
seemed to enter and flood the little rooms of the old house. But no
sunshine was half so bright as the joy which lit up the face of the old
white-headed man, upon whose forehead lay the shadows of years and