Every year, towards the end of August, Baron Franz Leskjewitsch, the family scarecrow and Croesus, was wont to appear at his estate, Vorhabshen, near Zirkow, to learn the condition of the harvest, to spend a few days in hunting, and to abuse everything and everybody before, at the end of a couple of weeks, vanishing as suddenly as he had appeared.

On these occasions he avoided his brother Paul with evident determination. If any of the family were at Komaritz, he invited them to dinner once or twice, at such times taking pains to make himself particularly offensive to Heda, whom he could not endure.

He had never spent any length of time at Vorhabshen since the family quarrel, and in consequence the dwelling-house, or castle, upon which, miser that he was, he never would spend a penny for repairs, had come to be tumble-down and sordid in appearance, both inside and out. It was a huge structure, with numerous windows, in which many of the sashes were sprung and some destitute of panes, never having been reglazed since the last hail-storm had worked ruin among them.

Among the family portraits, which hung in a dark, oak-wainscoted gallery, the pigeons built their nests.

Like many another Bohemian castle, the mansion at Vorhabshen was built close to the farm-yard, and its front faced an immense, light-brown manure-heap.

The inmates of this unpicturesque ruin--whose duty it was to keep it ready for its master's brief visits--were, first, the housekeeper, Lotta Papoushek; then the Baron's court-fool, the former brewer Studnecka, who at times imagined himself the prophet Elisha, and at other times a great musical genius; then the superintendent, with his underlings; and finally, any young man who might be tempted to come hither to study modern agriculture, and whose studies were generally confined to allowing himself to be pampered by the housekeeper Lotta, who had all the admiration of her class for courteous young people.

Frau Lotta had been in the Baron's service for more than forty years. Her large face was red, dotted with brown warts, and her features were hard and masculine. Although she certainly was far from attractive in appearance, there was a report that she had once been handsome, and that Baron Franz, when he received the news of his son's marriage with Marie Duval, had exclaimed, "I'll marry my housekeeper! I'll marry Lotta!" How this would have aided to re-establish the family prestige it is difficult to say, and it is doubtful whether the speech was made; but twenty years afterwards Lotta used to tell of it, and of how she had replied, "That would be too nonsensical, Herr Baron!" Notwithstanding her peculiarities and her overweening self-conceit, she was a thoroughly good creature, and devoted heart and soul to the Leskjewitsch family. Her absolute honesty induced the Baron to make her authority at Vorhabshen paramount, to the annoyance of the superintendent and his men.

It was a clear afternoon,--the 1st of September; the steam thresher was at work in the farm-yard, and its dreary puffing and groaning were audible in Lotta's small sitting-room, on the ground-floor of the mansion, where she was refreshing herself with a cup of coffee, having invited the student of agriculture--a young Herr von Kraschinsky--to share her nectar.

She had been regaling him with choice bits of family history, as he lay back comfortably in an arm-chair, looking very drowsy, when, after a pause, she remarked, as if in soliloquy, "I should like to know where the master is; I have had no answer to the long letter I sent to him at Franzburg."

"Oh, you correspond with the Baron, do you?" murmured the student, too lazy to articulate distinctly.

"Of course I do. You must not forget that my position in the Leskjewitsch family is higher than that of a servant. I was once governess to our poor, dear Baron Fritz; and I have always been devoted to them."

In fact, Lotta had been Fritz's nurse; and it was true that she had always been much valued, having been treated with great consideration on account of her absolute fidelity and her tolerably correct German.

"Yes," she went on, careless as to her companion's attention, "I wrote to the Baron about the wheat and the young calves, and I told him of Baron Harry's betrothal. I am curious to know what he will say to it. For my part, it is not at all to my taste."

"But then you are so frightfully aristocratic," said her guest.

Lotta smiled; nothing pleased her more than to be rallied upon her aristocratic tendencies, although she made haste to disclaim them. "Oh, no; I am by no means so feudal"--a favourite word of hers, learned from a circulating library to which she subscribed--"as you think. I never shall forget how I tried to bring about a reconciliation between Baron Fritz and his father; but the master was furious, called the widow and her little child, after poor Fritz's death, 'French baggage,' and threatened me with dismissal if I ever spoke of them. What could I do? I could not go near the little girl when Baron Paul brought her to Zirkow; but I have watched her from a distance, and have rejoiced to see her grow lovelier every year, and the very image of her father. And when all the country around declared that Baron Harry was in love with her, I was glad; but our master was furious, although the young things were then mere children, and declared that not one penny of his money should his nephew have if he married the child of that shop-girl. I suppose Baron Harry has taken all this into consideration." The old woman's face grew stern as she folded her arms on her flat chest and declared again, "I am curious to know what the master will think of this betrothal."

Outside in the farm-yard the steam thresher continued its monotonous task; the superintendent, a young man, something of a coxcomb, stood apart from the puffing monster, a volume of Lenau in his hand, learning by heart a poem which he intended to recite at the next meeting of the "Concordia Association," in X----. The court-fool, Studnecka, was seated at his harmonium, composing.

Suddenly a clumsy post-chaise rattled into the courtyard. The superintendent started, and thrust his Lenau into his pocket. Lotta smoothed her gray hair, and went to meet the arrival. She knew that "the master" had come. It was his habit to appear thus unexpectedly, when it was impossible to be prepared for him. His masculine employees disliked this fashion extremely. Lotta was not at all disturbed by it.

Studnecka was the last to notice that something unusual was going on. When he did so, he left the harmonium and went to the window.

In the midst of a group of servants and farm-hands stood an old man in a long green coat and a shiny, tall hat. The court-fool observed something strange in his master's appearance. Suddenly he fairly gasped.

"The world is coming to an end!" he exclaimed. "Wonders will never cease,--the Herr Baron has a new hat!"