Part 30 (2/2)

Johanna accompanied Helena's messenger to the village. Her longing to see Lisbeth lent wings to her feet, and thrust into the background all questions as to how she should conduct herself towards her step-mother.

And when, as soon as the inn garden was reached, the pretty little figure came flying towards her, and Lisbeth's arms were round her neck, while she loaded her sister with caresses, calling her by all the old childish terms of endearment, Johanna forgot to be anything save grateful to Helena for affording her such a pleasure, and she held out her hand to her with emotion.

Helena clasped her in her arms. ”Dear Johanna! how glad I am!” she said.

”But here is some one, too, who longs to see you. My husband. Receive him kindly, I pray you.”

With these words she led Johanna into the inn parlour. ”Dear Carlo, here she is,” she added, with evident anxiety in her voice.

A broad-shouldered, middle-aged man, with a dark complexion, sparkling brown eyes, black hair, and a thick black moustache, arose from the window-seat. ”Most happy, most happy!” he cried, in ringing tones, taking Johanna's hand and shaking it without more ado. ”I have heard much that is fine about you, and have seen even more, for I think you were the horsewoman we watched this morning, eh?”

”And you were the spectator who waved his hat?” said Johanna.

”Rather say admirer,” Carlo Batti interrupted her. ”Admirer! By Jove!

you know how to manage a horse! Where in all the world, Fraulein, did you learn to ride so famously?”

”Dear Carlo, had we not better sit down before we plunge into an artistic discussion?” Helena asked, with some asperity. ”Come, Johanna, there is a sofa. Although it is a hard one----”

”Yes, yes, come!” Lisbeth exclaimed, drawing her sister towards it. ”We will sit down together, as we used to do in the twilight when you told me stories.”

”Do you remember them still?” Johanna said, gently. ”I thought you would forget me.” And, seating herself on the sofa, she took the child into her lap, and the little head was laid, as formerly, upon her shoulder.

”Forget!” Helena repeated, as she sank down in the other corner of the sofa. ”Forget you! That would be inexcusable, after all that you did for her. No; she is a good, grateful little thing. She has talked of you every day.”

These were strange words from the lips of this woman. Lisbeth solved the riddle. ”Yes, my dear, good old darling, I talked of you all the time; I wanted to come to you, and now I am not going away again. Mamma says that she and Uncle Carlo do not need me now, and will leave me with you.”

Helena looked embarra.s.sed. ”How naughty, Lisbeth!” she cried. ”And why do you say 'Uncle Carlo'? He is papa.”

The child sat upright in Johanna's lap. ”But he is not my papa,” she said, waywardly. ”Is he, Johanna?”

”Be quiet, you little mouse,” Carlo Batti interposed, having drawn up a chair beside Johanna and seated himself in it. ”Dear Helena, do not tease her; we can be just as good friends if she calls me Uncle Carlo.”

And turning to Johanna, he continued: ”Permit me to repeat my question, 'Of whom did you learn to ride?' Here are not only strength, security, elegance, but also, if I do not mistake, a grand method----”

”Which I owe partly to my grandfather and partly to old Martin, his groom,” was Johanna's smiling reply.

”Genius, then! pure genius!” cried Carlo Batti, and his bronze face flushed and his eager brown eyes sparkled. ”I'll tell you what! Come to us; put yourself in my hands, and, by Jove! I'll promise that in a year you shall be as famous as--as----”

”Don't trouble yourself, dear Carlo,” said Helena. ”Johanna, as you know, is about to marry a Herr von Donninghausen.”

”To be sure; I had forgotten. These infernal grand matches!” he exclaimed, with a comical expression of despair. ”You might search the length and breadth of the country and not find such a talent as yours.

And you think of marriage, an irksome marriage! No, no! come to us. Just try it!” And he seized Johanna's hand in a clasp from which it cost her repeated efforts to withdraw it, and went on with enthusiasm: ”I need not tell you what it is to have under perfect control a horse,--a strong, proud, n.o.ble creature; but you do not yet know what it is to feel a thousand eyes riveted upon you in admiration, to hear a thousand voices shouting applause. Try it; let me adjure you, try it! and I'll be d--d if you do not say Carlo Batti is right--'the world belongs to the artist, and it shall belong to me!' It belongs even more to a woman than to one of us, especially when she looks like----” He laughed, and his glance completed his sentence. ”I cannot understand, Helena, how you could tell me that Fraulein Johanna was not beautiful. A brilliant apparition for the ring,--entirely too brilliant. It would outs.h.i.+ne all others.”

Johanna laughed; the man's coa.r.s.e admiration was expressed with such good-humoured simplicity that she could not resent it.

But Helena said, half irritated and half confused, ”You forget entirely that Johanna has arranged her future very differently.” Then, smiling sweetly, she added, in a sentimental tone, ”You men never appreciate the delight with which a true woman relinquishes art, even when she has tasted its raptures and its triumphs, for the sake of her love. You, indeed, dear Carlo, ought to know this.”

<script>