Good Herr Braun came slowly down the lake-path, his hands clasped behind his back, his lips pursed round a cigarette. There was a peaceful look on his face, and his blue eyes were full of happiness as he gazed at the lake, bluer even than they. Suddenly, as he paused outside the high withes-and-stakes fence that surrounded a certain wide piece of land and two chalets, he heard a clear bird-like whistle. At once he removed his cigarette and swept off his hat; for Herr Braun, though he was only a fat old Austrian hotel-keeper, was a gentleman at heart, and he knew the whistler.
She appeared a moment later—a slender girl of fifteen, with a pointed face, shadowed by lank black hair cut in a deep fringe over her forehead and neatly bobbed all round. She was pale, but it was a healthy pallor, and her black eyes were bright with intelligence and twinkled merrily as she saw him. ‘Grüss Gott, Herr Braun,’ she cried in a sweet contralto voice that bespoke her a singer. ‘Isn’t it a glorious day to-day?’