Yet! You are still Jungfrau Maria! You haven't changed a hair. That's
just the way you bent your head at the wedding in Delft, the way you
raised your hands, lowered your eyes--you blushed too, just as prettily."

There was a rare melody in the voice which uttered these words with
joyous, almost childlike freedom, which pleased Maria no less than the
officer's familiar manner annoyed her. With a hasty movement she raised
her head, looked steadily into the young man's handsome face and said
with dignity:

"You see only the exterior, Junker von Dornburg; three years have made
many changes within."

"Junker von Dornburg," he repeated, shaking his waving locks. "I was
Junker Georg in Delft. Very different things have happened to us, dear
lady, very different things. You see I have grown a tolerable, though
not huge moustache, am stouter, and the sun has bronzed my pink and white
boyish face--in short: my outer man has changed for the worse, but within
I am just the same as I was three years ago."

Maria felt the blood again mounting into her cheeks, but she did not wish
to blush and answered hastily: "Standing still is retrograding, so you
have lost three beautiful years, Herr von Dornburg."

The officer looked at Maria in perplexity, and then said more gravely
than before:

"Your jest is more opportune, than you probably suppose; I had hoped to
find you again in Delft, but powder was short in Alfen, so the Spaniard
will probably reach your native city sooner than we. Now a kind fate