whether master or man, said her nay in the lightest thing, to my
knowledge, and this was a plea for the one fault which had hitherto set
me against her.

Everything here was new to Ann; and what could be more delightful, what
could give me greater joy than to be able to show all that was noteworthy
and pleasant, and to me well-known, to a well-beloved friend, and to tell
her the use and end of each thing. In this two men were ever ready to
help me: Uncle Conrad and the young Baron von Kalenbach, a Swabian who
had come to be my uncle's disciple and to learn forestry.

This same young Baron was a slender stripling, well-grown and not ill-
favored; but it seemed as though his lips were locked, and if a man was
fain to hear the sound of his voice and get from him a "yea" or "nay"
there was no way but by asking him a plain question. His eye, on the
other hand, was full of speech, and by the time I had been no more than
three weeks at the Lodge it told me, as often as it might, that he was
deeply in love with me; nay, he told the reverend chaplain in so many
words that his first desire was that he might take me home as his wife
to Swabia, where he had rich estates.

Never would I have said him yea, albeit I liked him well; nor did I hide
it from him; nay indeed, now and again I may have lent him courage,
though truly with no evil intent, since I was not ill pleased with the
tale his eyes told me. And I was but a young thing then, and wist not as
yet that a maid who gives hope to a suitor though she has no mind to hear
him, is guilty of a sin grievous enough to bring forth much sorrow and
heart-ache. It was not till I had had a lesson which came upon me all
too soon, that I took heed in such matters; and the time was at hand when
men folks thought more about me than I deemed convenient.