If only Wildschloss could be shaken off! But he only
became constantly more friendly and intrusive, almost paternal. No
wonder, when the mother and her uncle made him so welcome, and were
so intolerably grateful for his impertinent interference, while even
Friedel confessed the reasonableness of his counsels, as if that were
not the very sting of them.
He even asked leave to bring his little daughter Thekla from her
convent to see the Lady of Adlerstein. She was a pretty, flaxen-
haired maiden of five years old, in a round cap, and long narrow
frock, with a little cross at the neck. She had never seen any one
beyond the walls of the nunnery; and, when her father took her from
the lay sister's arms, and carried her to the gallery, where sat
Hausfrau Johanna, in dark green, slashed with cherry colour, Master
Gottfried, in sober crimson, with gold medal and chain, Freiherrinn
Christina, in silver-broidered black, and the two Junkern stood near
in the shining mail in which they were going to the tilt yard, she
turned her head in terror, struggled with her scarce known father,
and shrieked for Sister Grethel.
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