Clear the Track! A Story of To-day. E. Werner
peculiar relation in which the youth who had saved Eric's life stood to the Dernburg family, had always been a matter of surprise in the village, and to many of envy as well. Egbert Runeck, the son of a workman employed in the foundry, had passed his early boyhood amid the plainest surroundings, and continued to move in the same sphere as his parents, until nearly grown. If, nevertheless, he learned more than any of his companions of the same age, he had, in the first place, to thank the excellent schools, which Dernburg had established for the children of his employés, and upon which he lavished uncommon care. The rarely endowed boy, with his unflagging diligence, had already, in earlier days, attracted the chief's attention, but after he had saved the life of his only son his future was decided. He shared Eric's lessons, was treated almost as a member of the family, and was finally sent to Berlin for the completion of his education.
The Manor-house lay quite apart from the works, on an eminence that commanded the whole valley. It was an imposing edifice, built in good style, with a broad terrace, long rows of windows, and a great covered piazza in front, the roof of which was supported upon columns. Dotted here and there, ever the broad expanse of lawn and park, were monarchs of the forest that had been spared in clearing, the long line of wooded hills in the rear, with their grand old trees, forming an extremely effective background for the picture. It was a fair and stately abode, that might well have merited the name of castle, but Dernburg did not like it at all when they applied that designation to it, and so it was called in the end as in the beginning, "Odensburg Manor."
The family were accustomed to spend the greatest part of the year here, although Dernburg possessed several other estates that were more beautifully situated, and he also had a residence in Berlin. But he never went to the capital, unless his duty as a member of the diet called him there; for the most part, too, he only paid short and flying visits to his other estates. Odensburg needed the master's hand and eye, and was it not the creation of his own brain? Upon this ground he was unlimited ruler; here his will alone held sway; here much could be won or lost; and therefore it had been and continued to be his favorite abode.
There was as little to be found fault with in the family-life of the Dernburgs as in their outward surroundings. He and his gentle, shrinking wife, had been a model married couple, she being in perfect subjection to her domineering husband. Now his only sister, the widowed Frau von Ringstedt took the part of lady of the house. She had lived with her brother for a good many years, and tried to make up to his children for the loss of their mother, who had died young.
It was towards the end of April, but the weather was still cold and uncomfortable. In the South, for two months already Spring had gladdened the earth with her wealth of bloom, but here, at the North, buds and leaves even now hardly dared to burst their sheaths, and a gray, cloud-covered sky spanned the somber, dark green foliage of the fir-trees.
Guests were expected at the Manor to-day. The curtains to the guest-chambers of the upper story were put far back, and the little parlor belonging to that suite of rooms had a festal air. Everywhere bloomed flowers, dispensing their sweet odors around; sweet, bright-hued children of Spring, that to be sure, even now had to be grown in hot-houses, decorated in lavish profusion the room evidently destined for a lady.
Two ladies were in it at this very moment, also. One, the younger, was amusing herself with teasing a little, soft, white Spitz dog, that she incessantly egged on to bark and jump, while the other lady surveyed the parlor with a critical eye, here straightening a chair, there pushing a curtain back, and once more arranging the pretty writing-materials on the desk.
"Must you always have that pug about you, Maia?" said she discontentedly. "He puts everything out of order, and just now came very near dragging off the table the vase of flowers as well as the cloth."
"I did lock him up, but he got out and ran after me," cried Maia. "Down, Puck. You must be good. Miss Friedberg says positively you must."
She laughingly called him, and, at the same time, cut at the little beast, with her pocket handkerchief, that, of course tried to catch hold of the handkerchief with loud barking. Miss Friedberg shuddered nervously and heaved a sigh.
"And do you call these the manners of a grown-up young lady! I felt obliged recently to complain to Herr Dernburg, and tell him that nothing was to be done with you. You will not be anything but the veriest child, and, if possible, exceed Puck himself in playing all manner of monkey-tricks. Tell me, if you ever intend to be earnest and rational?"
"Not for a long while, I hope," declared Maia. "Everything is so horribly earnest and rational at Odensburg already. Papa, aunt, you, Miss Leona, and lately Eric has been intolerable, too, sighing and longing after his lady-love from morning to night. And am I, too, to be made rational? But we do not like that, do we, Puck? We, at least, want to be merry." And so saying, she seized Puck by the fore-paws, and made him dance on his hind-legs, although he gave unmistakable signs of displeasure.
Maia Dernburg, who objected so emphatically to being rational, was evidently in the first bloom of young girlhood, not being a day over seventeen years of age. She was one of those creatures, at sight of whom the heart bounds, and who gladden the beholder as does bright sunshine. Her lovely face, that bore only a very remote likeness to her brother, beamed in the rosy freshness of youth and health, and her beautiful brown eyes had nothing mysterious about them like Eric's, They shone clear and bright, dimmed by no shadow in the world. Her fair hair, that glistened like gold, when the sun's rays struck it, only confined by a ribbon, fell in rich curls over her shoulders, while a few tiny ringlets, that would not submit to be bound, enhanced greatly the beauty of her brow. Her features were still half child-like, and the delicate, pretty figure had apparently not yet attained its full height; but this very thing gave to the young girl an unspeakable charm.
Miss Leona Friedberg, the governess of the young daughter of the house, who still filled an office that was by no means a sinecure, although, properly speaking, Maia's education was finished, was about five-and-thirty years old, and, although no longer young, had an attractive appearance: a slight, delicate form, with dark hair and eyes and a somewhat languid expression upon the pale but pleasant features. She responded to the rash remark of her pupil with a shrug of the shoulders, and then cast a searching look through the room.
"There, now we are ready! But you have been too extravagant with your flowers; Maia, the perfume is almost intoxicating."
"Oh! a promised bride must have flowers showered upon her! Cecilia is to find her future home beautiful, and flowers are the only things, with which we can welcome her. Papa will not hear of a grand reception taking place."
"Of course, since the betrothal is to be publicly announced first from here."
"And then there is to be a betrothal-party and a grand, grand wedding!" shouted Maia. "Oh! I am so curious to see Eric's betrothed. She must be beautiful, very beautiful. Eric is continually raving over her to me; but he does behave so comically as a love-sick swain. He never has a bright day now, because he is always dreaming of his Cecilia. Sometimes papa gets seriously vexed over it, and yesterday he said to me: 'You will behave more sensibly, my little Maia, when you are engaged, will you not?' Of course I shall: I'll be a model of good sense, I will!"
And to prove this incontestably, she took Puck in her arms, and whirled about the room with him, like a spinning-top.
"Oh yes! that is very likely!" cried Miss Leona, indignantly. "Maia, once more, I beseech you not to behave like a wild tom-boy, when your new connections come. What are the Baroness Wildenrod and her brother to think of your bringing-up, if they see a young lady almost seventeen years old behaving in that wild, hoydenish manner."
Maia, meanwhile, had finished her round dance and let loose her Puck, and now seated herself in a ceremonious manner, before her governess.
"I shall behave so as to satisfy the most fastidious, for I know the points thoroughly. Miss Wilson she tutored me: that English governess, you know, with the sallow face, turned-up nose, and no end of learning–do not look so provoked, Miss Leona, I am not talking about you!–Miss Wilson was really very tiresome, but I learned to curtesy as they do at court from her anyhow, look, so!" She made a low and solemn reverence. "You see I shall make an impression upon my future sister-in-law with my fine manners, and then I shall fall upon her neck and kiss her so and so;" and with this