"There it is," sighed the old man. "She knows what she wants, and holds
firmly to it. You are the son of a knight, and on account of the music
which you can pursue together--With her everything is possible and
little is impossible. In any case, you will have no easy life with her,
and, ere you order the wedding ring----" Here he suddenly stopped, for a
bird-song, high, clear, and yet as insinuatingly sweet as though, on this
evening in late April, the merriest and most skilful feathered songsters
which had recently found their way home to the fresh green leafage on the
shore of the Danube had made an appointment on the steps of the gloomy
house in Red Cock Street, rose nearer and nearer to the two men who were
sitting over their wine.

It was difficult to believe that this whistling and chirping, trilling
and cuckoo calling, came from the same throat; but when the bird notes
ceased just outside the door, and Barbara, with bright mirthfulness and
the airiest grace, sang the refrain of the Chant des Oiseaux, 'Car la
saison est bonne', bowing gracefully meanwhile, the old enemy of the
Turks fairly beamed with delight.

His eyes, wet with tears of grateful joy, sought the young man's, and,
though he had just warned him plainly enough against courting his
daughter, his sparkling gaze now asked whether he had ever met an equally
bewitching marvel.

"The deuce!" he cried out to his daughter when she at last paused and
extended her hand to him. He leaned comfortably farther back in his arm-
chair as he spoke, but she kissed him lightly on the forehead, while her
large blue eyes shone with cheerful content.