Greifenstein | Page 8

looked out over the tumbling torrent, and across
endless thousands of giant trees, whose dark tops rose like sombre
points of shadow out of the deeper shade below. Even the sky was not
blue. Half a kingdom of firs and pines and hemlocks drank the colour
from the air and left but a sober neutral tint behind. The sun does not
give half the light in the Black Forest that he gives elsewhere. As Hilda
had never, within her recollection, seen an open plain, much less a city,
her idea of the world beyond those leagues of trees in which she lived
was not a very accurate one. She could hardly guess what the streets of
a great town were like, or what effect a crowd of civilised people would
produce upon her sight. And yet she was far from ignorant. There were
books enough left at Sigmundskron for her education, and the baroness
had done what was in her power to impart such instruction as she could
command. Hilda had probably read as many books as most girls of her
age, and had read them more carefully, but she was very far from
loving study for its own sake. Her time, too, was occupied in other
ways, for she and her mother did most things for themselves, as was to
be expected in a household where want reigned supreme over the hours
of every day, from sunrise to sunset.
The necessity for maintaining appearances was small indeed, but such
as it was, neither mother nor daughter could avoid it. No one could
predict what day the Greifensteins would choose for one of their

occasional visits, and in the time of the vacations no one could foresee
when Greif might make his appearance, striding over the wooded hills
with his gun and his dog to spend a quiet afternoon with Hilda in their
favourite sunny corner at the foot of the dismantled tower. When
poverty is to be concealed, his shadow must not be caught lurking at
the door by chance visitors. Nor was it only out of fear of being
surprised by her relations that the quiet baroness insisted that Hilda and
even Berbel should always be presentable. Her pride was inseparably
united with that rigid self-respect which, in the poor, alone saves pride
from being ridiculous. It was indeed marvellous that she should
succeed as she did in hiding the extremity of her need from the
Greifensteins, but it must be remembered that she had never been rich,
and had learned in early youth many a lesson, many a shift of economy
which now stood her in good stead. The Germans have a right to be
proud of having elevated thrift to a fine art. From the Emperor to the
schoolmaster, from the administration of the greatest military force the
world has ever seen to the housekeeping of the meanest peasant, a
sober appreciation of the value of money is the prime rule by which
everything is regulated. Frau von Sigmundskron had made a plan, had
drawn up a tiny budget in exact proportion with the pension which was
her only means of subsistence, and thanks to her unfailing health had
never departed from it. The expenditure had indeed been so closely
regulated from the first, that she had found it necessary to limit herself
to what would barely support life, in order not to stint her child's
allowance. Being by temperament a very religious woman, she
attributed to Providence that success in rearing Hilda for which she
might well have thanked her own iron determination and untiring
efforts. If ever a woman deserved the help of Heaven in consideration
of having bravely helped herself, the baroness had earned that
assistance. So far as the ordinary observer could judge, however, she
had obtained nothing from the world save a reputation for avarice.
Hilda was too much accustomed to the state of things in which she had
grown up, to appreciate her mother's sacrifices, or to feel towards her
anything like warm gratitude. She herself did all she could, and that
was not little, in the struggle for existence. It is even possible that she
was more grateful to Berbel, than to the baroness herself. For Berbel
voluntarily shared privations, to which the two ladies were obliged to

submit. Berbel was faithful, devoted, uncomplaining, cheerful; and she
was all this, not for the sake of a servant's pay, since her wages were
infinitesimally small, but out of pure affection for her mistress.
Berbel had been the wife of Lieutenant von Sigmundskron's servant,
who had fallen beside his master, rifle in hand, his face to the enemy.
Mistress and maid were left alike widows on the same day, alike young
and portionless, the only difference being that Frau von Sigmundskron
had Hilda,