THE
WAY OUT OF THE WOODS
WHEN he was sure of his degree at Göttingen, Burgess went up into the Harz to rest for a month and to finish the press-work on his German thesis.
He stayed in a forester's cottage in Bergesthal, a small village where at sunset the shadow of the Brocken fell. From the cliffs above, the valley was commanded by the Bergesthal Princes' castle. The American student was as completely in retreat as any world-weary monk, and he did most of his proof-reading on benches placed in the woods by the local "society of beautification."
One day while striding with the forester along one of the paths that follow the road they met the local Prince's carriage. It was a familiar sight in the village. The smart liveries and shining horses dashed through the street on some errand several times each day, but the trap was always empty. Here, along the wood-road, they were drawing a low victoria at a walk, and as it neared Burgess he caught the flutter of a lace parasol. The forester touched his arm.
"Her Highness, our Princess,—Ilse von Bergesthal," he whispered; "she will salute us."
And Burgess lifted his cap to a radiant vision whose thin white gown trailed a little out of the carriage, whose brilliant red hair caught the sunlight through the leaves, though the ruffle of the parasol shaded the deep eyes, complacently staring at the foreigner. Her companion, an older woman, also in white, devoted herself to a punctilious acknowledgment of the forester's salutation.
Burgess looked after the carriage. When it had turned the comer the road appeared distinctly empty.
"What glorious, incomparable beauty!" he exclaimed to his companion in the enthusiastic German phrase. "Your Princess really looks like a princess! She's the first one I ever saw who did. She can't be the wife of that old Prince who shoots everything?"
"The Prince is a widower, Meinherr. This is his eldest daughter, and we think her most fair and gracious. I have myself spoken with her three or four times personally. She has been most kind. But
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