It was the Major, who never could wait a minute.

His face was red and the powder from his curls had been shaken off in his hurry. He greeted no one.

"Richard, Richard," he cried, "there is news of a battle at Eylau!"

The gentlemen sprang from their chairs, Madame von Stork turned pale. Her Wolfgang was with the army.

"Yes, yes," cried the Major, speaking French very rapidly, "there has been a battle, a dreadful one, something terrible. There is no news yet that is certain. Some say, victory, others, defeat, but the whole town is in wild excitement. I have heard that the suffering of the soldiers was awful."

"Naturally," said Herr Brandt in German—not a word of French would he speak, "with all this ice, snow, and freezing."

"I have but one boy," said the Major, "and he is with the army. Here, Clarchen, some wine. Ah, many thanks, Mademoiselle Pauline." In spite of his worry he made a gallant bow, the cockade on his queue bobbing.

"My Rudolph," he said, "is a soldier, and perhaps at Eylau. But he can be nothing better than his father was, now can he?" He settled his double chin over his high stock and gazed from his blue eyes at the gentlemen.

The Professor motioned them all to seats.

"Clarchen," he said to his wife, "it is bedtime for the children." His voice was trembling.

The children all bowed and curtsied, and, kissing their mother's hand and wishing pleasant dreams for everybody, departed; Marianne, Pauline, and Otto, also.

The gentlemen, for Madame von Stork in a moment followed to give orders to her servant, sat with filled glasses and discussed Napoleon and their country.

Presently the Professor left the room to order another bottle of wine and some sandwiches.

"That older girl, Mademoiselle Pauline, is an excellent maiden," remarked Dr. Hufeland, in tones of admiration. Herr Brandt nodded, his face growing serious.

"Did you notice how calm she kept amid all the excitement?"

"Yes, yes," said the Major, "she is excellent, always ready to arrange my stock or tie the ribbon on my queue. Very different from my niece, Marianne," he added, "very different, I assure you."

Herr Brandt raised his eyebrows.

"Richard has spoiled that girl," he remarked; "see here." He picked up "The Sorrows of Werther," which lay under Marianne's chair.

Then he read aloud high-flown passages marked by Marianne's pencil.

"How her parents expect any sensible German man to marry her I cannot form an idea. A German man desires a wife who can cook, sew, and keep his house in order."

The Doctor raised his hand, for the Professor was entering with the bottle.

Almost immediately his wife followed.

Her eyes at once fell on "The Sorrows of Werther," and her face darkened.

"See, Richard, see," she cried, "we quite forgot to scold Marianne."

"Come, come, Clarchen," the Professor's voice was kind and soothing, "let the girl be. We have far more serious things now to worry over."

Then he lifted the book from the table.

"Ah, Goethe," he cried, and, in a moment, the battle of Eylau and all else was forgotten, while his eager eye conned the familiar pages. Madame von Stork turned to the others, who burst into laughter as they watched her husband.

"Just see him!" cried the poor lady, her turban bobbing as she shook her head with violence.

Startled, the Professor looked up from his book, his mild, learned face full of wonder.

"What is it?" he asked, "is it supper time?"

"Nein, nein, Richard," and Herr Brandt slapped his shoulder with sarcastic affection. "It is nothing, you know, only the cannon of Napoleon."

He, himself, had not the least good for Goethe, who had remained quietly at his dinner in his garden in Weimar when the cannon were thundering at Jena, and who sang no songs of patriotism, had nothing to cry out against Napoleon.

"But, Richard," his wife laid her hands on his arm, "you must pay heed to Marianne." The gentlemen nodded. "She is more trouble to me than all my other children. Even the twins and Carl are more useful. Reading, talking, dreaming, that is Marianne. She is good for nothing else. It is Bettina Brentano who has ruined her. I have never approved of that friendship. But, O Heavens, why worry over anything when my Franz is a prisoner, and my Wolfgang, I know not where!" and she burst into tearful sobbing. Herr Brandt and Dr. Hufeland arose in haste, and, kissing her hand and saying good-night to the Professor and Major, they fled.

There was little sleep for anyone that night, for dreadful pictures of Wolfgang, or Rudolph, frozen, or dead in the snow, arose before every eye, and drove away all slumbers.

On the morning, when the courier brought the truth to Memel, Marianne was writing a letter to her friend Brentano.

She had met this famous friend of Goethe when she was a year younger, and on a visit to her aunt in Frankfort-on-Main.

Never had Marianne seen anyone who had seemed to her so clever.

Both of them adored the poet Goethe, it being the fashion in those days for young girls to worship some poet.

Bettina Brentano knew Goethe's mother, a fine old lady whom everyone called "Frau Rat," and often she and Marianne went to see her.

When Marianne returned to Berlin she was changed entirely.

From a merry, jolly, little girl she had become a mournful maiden who convulsed her family with the most melancholy speeches. She spoke of the gloom of living, of the joy of dying while one was still beautiful, and if anyone talked of Goethe, or even so much as mentioned his name, Marianne clasped her hands and rolled her eyes and behaved, her brother said, "like an idiot."

The Professor only laughed.

"She has the Goethe fever, Clarchen," he told his wife. "It has spread at times all over Germany."

But on the day when Carl had been lost and the Queen had kissed him, the fault of the whole affair was to be laid on the shoulders of Marianne.

Then the Professor had at last listened to his wife and heard how Marianne would do nothing but read books, keep a foolish, sentimental journal, and write letters to Bettina Brentano.

"And, dear husband," his wife had added, "our Marianne talks of love and hopeless sorrow, our Marianne, who used to be so merry. Her thoughts are never with the coffee-cake, never with her sewing. And tell me, please, how is a girl to get a husband with this nonsense? Her wedding chest, which every German girl, as you know, must have ready, has not a thing to boast of, and Pauline's is entirely ready. She will not stitch, knit, or embroider, only read, read, read."

"It is the Goethe fever, I tell you, dear wife," said the Professor. "It will vanish."

"But, Richard," pleaded the Mother Stork, "consider the candles."

"Candles?"

Ah, that was a different matter.

"Yes, yes, dear husband, the candles. Do not think for an instant that I permit all this nonsense to go on in the daytime. If I see Marianne with a book, I take it away and provide needlework. And what does she do but burn candles!"

"Ah," said the Professor, "that will never do. I will see to the matter."

Now, at that moment Marianne was safe, she thought, in her room, her pretty hair floating over her blue dressing jacket, her paper on her desk, her pen in her hand.

"Ah, my chosen friend, my Bettina," she wrote in the high-flown style of that day, "who but thou understands thy Marianne? On every side I meet with derisive laughter when I would speak of him whose name I am not worthy to mention, our Master, thine and mine, our Goethe! Oh, to be again with thee, to sit with thee beneath the free, open Heaven, gazing upward at the celestial orbs whose silver beams thrill into thought, mysterious wonder of that law-ruled world of Nature which none but poets truly know. Oh, Bettina, how worthless is life when spent amid the trivialities of nothingness. Oh, to wander with thee, my heart's true friend, chosen of my spirit, to wander on the wings of thy imagination into the realms of infinite calm, and there to prepare our souls to be a sacrifice to him who——"

A knock at the door had interrupted this flight of sentimental fancy.

In had come her father.

With a laugh he had shut the writing-desk.

"Liebchen," he said, "it is time for bed. Do your writing by daylight."

Then he kissed her cheeks and patted her hair, and told her he could have no such wasting of candles.

"To bed in five minutes," he had commanded, and that ended the burning of candles. But nothing yet had cured her of her thoughtlessness, and it was still Pauline who did everything to assist the mother.

On the day that the news came of Eylau, Madame von Stork and Pauline were busy making coffee-cake, Bettina, Ilse, and Elsa helping stem currants and stone raisins.

In her room Marianne was telling Bettina Brentano all about their life in Memel. She was not sure that she could send a letter, but it was amusing at all events to write it. It was stupid to make coffee-cake.

"It is pleasant, dear Bettina," she wrote, "that our dear Queen and King are in Memel. Often, now, father is sent for to talk with the Queen, and one day mother took me to pay our respects to the Countess von Voss, who is a friend of my dear grandmother. She is a very lively and beautiful old lady, Mistress of the Court, and like a mother to our Queen. She is very clever, and the gentlemen greatly admire her. She is so stately, and will not forgive a lack of ceremony. I was in the greatest terror, as you may imagine. We were shown into her room where she was engaged at her toilette, some gentlemen, among them a Mr. Jackson, an Englishman, laughing and talking as her maid did her hair.

"I made my curtsey and saluted her hand.

"'And this is your daughter,' she said very kindly to mother. 'Dear Clara, the child has a look of poor Erna.'

"That was my aunt, my Bettina, who died when she was a girl, and who was engaged to Ludwig Brandt.

"Then the Countess asked us to be seated, and when at last her hair received its crown of a turban, she gave us some fine tea from England, which Mr. Jackson had given here.

"It was most kind in her, but I prefer our coffee.

"She told us story after story about our Queen, for it is of her that she best likes to talk; and, also, she spoke of dear little Prince William, and of how he had entered the army.

"It happened on New Year's Day, because the coming of the French made the King fear that he could not present him with the honour on his birthday.

"When the Royal children appeared before our King, he greeted them for the New Year, and then turned to little Prince William, and, oh, he is the dearest little fellow, my Bettina! so sensible-looking and so, in face, like our King. 'To-day,' said our King, 'something very important is to happen. William,' and he turned directly to him, 'I have nominated you to a commission in the army. We can no longer stay here in KÖnigsberg, because of the approach of the enemy, and we must go to Memel at once. I might not be able to give you the appointment on your birthday, as I had intended to do, so I give it to you now.' Then, indeed, as you may imagine, little William was happy.

"The Countess told us how they arrayed him in a blue coat, with a red collar and narrow, dark trowsers and high boots to his knees. Exactly like the Guard, you remember.

"Then, suddenly, everybody began to cry 'Ah Heaven!' and lift up hands in horror. It is a rule that the Guard must wear queues, and Prince William's hair was too short for a pig-tail. 'And there they were,' said the Countess, 'acting as foolishly as they are doing about this war, when I simply sent out for a false queue and tied it on the child's hair, and ended the trouble.' Then they gave him a little cane, and behold, a fine soldier!

"He is my favourite, and sometimes I think that the Countess likes him better than the Crown Prince, who certainly knows that he is clever, but he is very handsome. Then the Countess told us of how dreadful it was at KÖnigsberg, where our dear Queen was so ill, and how, when they told her that the French were at hand, she begged to be allowed to travel. She had a great horror of that monster, Napoleon, who has vowed to capture her, and so she told them it was better to fall into the hands of the good God, than into the hands of man.

"Mother asked the Countess why Napoleon so hated the Queen. Before she could answer her parrot suddenly called out in the funniest way: 'Napoleon is a monster! Our Queen is an angel! Down with the French!' You can guess how startled we were, but...."

Before Marianne could end her sentence she heard Otto calling: "Marianne! Marianne!"

She flew downstairs and into the great kitchen.

There were Pauline, her mother, the children, and her father all listening to her uncle.

"The courier has come!" cried Otto. "Uncle will tell us the news!"

Both Russians and French claimed the victory, but such sufferings had never been known in the world's history.

Amid the ice and snow, all had waited for days, the Russians occupying a church and graveyard, the camp fires lighting snowy fields and trees and bushes which crackled.

"The courier, dear Richard," the old major addressed his brother, "says thousands are sleeping a sleep from which even the love of their families never can wake them."

He blew his nose with great violence.

"The snow is red with the blood of thousands," he continued, "the Russians, God be thanked, kept their ground. They are not conquerors, it is true, but they have checked Napoleon!"

The Major's face flushed crimson.

"God be praised!" cried all the company, and the kitchen rang with rejoicings.

But they had not heard all the good news.

"It is said," concluded the Major, "that the Emperor of the French will now propose peace."

"And Wolfgang? Rudolph?"

The Major shook his head, his cockade bobbing.

"No news yet, dear sister, we can trust only in God, but I have no reason to believe they were at Eylau."

Bettina had listened eagerly.

She was very much afraid of the Major. He was so red-faced and important looking, and had not much good for people below him, and so she waited until at last he left the room. Then she crept quietly to Marianne.

"Please, dear gracious FrÄulein," she whispered, "was my grandfather in the battle?"

Marianne was opening her lips to speak, when Otto interrupted:

"Nein, Bettina, nein. Your grandfather...."

"Otto!"

Pauline quickly stopped him, her hand across his mouth.

"No, little Bettina," she said very kindly, "your grandfather was not with the army."

"Will he come, gracious FrÄulein, come soon?" Bettina's eyes looked up eagerly.

"Perhaps, child, perhaps." Pauline turned away and picked up some cups from a table.

"Run away, children," she said, "and play until dinner."

Bettina went slowly. It was very strange that her grandfather never came back to fetch her. They were kind to her and she loved them, but she wanted her grandfather. Would she never see Thuringia again, nor Willy, nor her godmother, nor her brothers? The tears filled her eyes and the sobs came.

Poor little Bettina!

She lived in sad, cruel times, and she was to be a woman before she ever again met even one of them, or walked in the forest paths of Thuringia, or saw the spire of St. Michael's rising high above the red roofs of Jena.