untold wealth which would one day belong to the golden-haired Lady
Hilda. They knew, for the knowledge could not be kept from them and
their kind, how very few were the silver pieces which were ever seen in
the hands of old Berbel, when she came down to the village market to
buy food, and they naturally concluded that the baroness was a miser
even like some of themselves, keeping her store of gold in a broken
teapot somewhere among those turrets in a spot known only to the owls.
It is also possible that Berbel--her name was Barbara--encouraged the
idea, thinking it better that her beloved mistresses should be thought
avaricious than poor. The burgomaster of the hamlet, who had to take
off his coat in order to sign his name when that momentous operation
was unavoidable, but who was supposed to know vastly more than the
schoolmaster, used to talk about certain mines in Silesia, owned by the
Sigmundskrons; and once or twice he went so far as to assure his
hearers that gold and even diamonds were found there in solid blocks as
big as his own Maass-Krug, that portentous jug from which he derived
inspiring thoughts for conversation, or peaceful satisfaction in
solitude, as the case might be. All, however, agreed in predicting that
things would go much better when the young gentleman of Greifenstein
was married to the young lady of Sigmundskron.

On that warm afternoon in July when Greif was expected, his father took
his gun, though there was little to shoot at that season, and sallied
forth on foot along the broad road that led to the distant railway
station. The portly gatekeeper smiled pleasantly as he stood looking
after his master. For many years, whenever the student was to come
home, old Greifenstein had gone down that road, in the same way,
without a word to any one, but having that same twinkle of happy
anticipation in his eyes, which was never seen there at any other time.
Very generally, too, the laden carriage came rumbling up to the gate