All at once the door of the sleeping-room opened, and a
tall, old Receiver, in my dotted dressing-gown, entered! He paused on
the threshold upon beholding me thus unexpectedly, took his spectacles
quickly from his nose, and looked angrily at me. Not a little alarmed,
I started up, and, without saying a word, ran out of the door and
through the little garden, where I was very nearly tripped up by the
confounded potato-vines which the old Receiver had planted, evidently
by the Porter's advice, in place of my flowers. I heard him as he
came out of the door scolding after me, but I was mounted atop of the
garden wall, and gazing with a throbbing heart over into the castle
garden.
Ah, how the birds were flitting and twittering and singing! The lawns
and paths were deserted, but the gilded tree-tops nodded a welcome to
me in the evening breeze, and on one side, up through masses of dark
green foliage, gleamed the Danube.
Suddenly I heard sung from the depths of the garden--
"When the yearning heart is stilled
As in dreams, the forest sighing,
To the listening earth replying,
Tells the thoughts with which 'twas filled,
Days long vanished, soothing sorrow--
From the Past a light they borrow,
And the heart is gently thrilled."
The voice and the song were strangely familiar, as if I had heard
them somewhere in a dream. I pondered over and over again, and at last
exclaimed, joyfully, "It is Herr Guido!" swinging myself quickly down
into the garden.
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