Sidonia was very angry. She sat down on the high-backed chair and set the ancient spinning wheel whirring with a hand that trembled.
"One thing is certain," she resumed in a choked voice, "if I ever do marry, Aunt Betty, I shall choose my own husband."
"Of course, among the crowds that besiege the gay Burg of Wellenshausen, up in the clouds, my sweet creature," said the Burgravine, without turning her head, "you will have only _l’embarras du choix_ and then——" But here she interrupted herself with a sharp ejaculation. Her fingers ceased their angry tune. She swung back the window a trifle wider and leaned out further than she had ventured upon her threat of suicide. "Look, look!" she cried in altered tones. "Do you see? There are two men coming up the road with a pack-horse. No, ’tis a donkey!"
[Illustration: "_Look, look, do you see? ... There are two men coming up the road with a pack-horse. No, ’tis a donkey._"]
Sidonia sprang up and leaned out eagerly across her aunt’s shoulder. They were but a pair of children of different ages, when all was said and done.
"It can only be the miller’s boy and the gardener ... or the shepherd," opined she.
"Oh, yes, the very outline of humpback John and the swing of bandy Peperl!" (This was sarcastic.) "To the hangman with these evening mists! Now, now, see! a gentleman, or I’m a goose-girl ... a young man, or I’m a grandmother! Poor things, how they toil!"
"Why, ’tis Geiger-Hans!" exclaimed the lady’s niece, in amazement. But it was not, surely, the sight of Geiger-Hans which brought such crimson to her cheek.
"And who may Geiger-Hans be?" cried the Burgravine.
"My dear friend, everybody’s friend, Geiger-Hans the roadside player," said the girl. "Why, you have heard me speak of him many a time. If he were young and wore a plume and a dagger, people would call him a minnesinger. And his music—ah! it moves the heart like——"
"Why, the creature’s a beggar, child!" interrupted the lady, peering down. "But the other——"
She drew back from the window in great fluster. "It’s quite clear that you and I have company at last. Oh, for once I will be mistress here! They shall be admitted, _maugré_ my ogre! Call Eliza! Get you into a decent gown, for Heaven’s sake! My rose taffeta—it shall be my rose taffeta. And you?—Wear anything but white at your peril!"