The people in the city considered this all very reasonable,
and conceived a still greater opinion of the affluence of the Graf,
who was able to maintain so great an establishment The
Forest-master's daughter lived with her husband in the happiest
manner ; and when he sometimes, accompanied by some of his
servants, made a little excursion into the country round, she in-
vited always some of her friends from the city, and never sent
them back without the most beautiful gifts. The Grafin, indeed,
wondered with herself, that her husband, who otherwise grati-
fied all her desires the moment they were uttered, never took



NEW YEAR'S EVE. 353

her with him on these little excursions ; but she loved him too well
to chagrin him by pressing entreaties. The winter was now
come, and yet the excursions of the Graf did not cease. They
were it is true, more seldom, but they often stretched themselves
into weeks ; and the young wife frequently felt herself exces-
sively solitary when she, with her maid, the only other female
who was in the castle, sate in the large room, and the wind with-
out shook the naked branches of the trees fearfully.
