It was March, and a young girl was walking from town upon the highway, here and there bordered by neat cottages. She turned into the broad road leading to the castle mill. The traces of the last snow-storm had not entirely disappeared, the water had not dried in the broad ruts left by the wheels of the mill-wagons or in the deep footprints of the passers-by; but the young girl’s little feet were encased in stout leather boots, and her black silk dress was so well caught up that there was no trace of mud upon its edge. She looked no elf or fairy as she walked on with a sure, elastic step. No; she was rather like some fair Alpine maid, with veins and sinews full of vigorous health, nourished by the pure breath of the mountain air and the sweet fresh milk of mountain-fed cows. A close black velvet jacket, trimmed with fur, showed the full, graceful outlines of bust and waist, and upon her brown hair sat, a little to one side, a cap of marten-skin. Her features were far from classically regular: the aquiline nose was too short for the width and shape of the brow, the mouth too large, the dimpled chin too strongly marked, the eyebrows not sufficiently delicate; but all these defects were more than atoned for by the pure oval of the whole face and the incomparable freshness and beauty of its colouring.
She turned into the open door of the court-yard of the castle mill, scattering before her a number of chickens assembled upon the wagon-road to pick up some scattered grains of wheat. They flew hither and thither with a loud cackling, and a couple of watch-dogs, roused from their lazy doze by the noise, barked furiously. How bright and golden the warm spring sunshine looked, flooding the walls of the grand old pile of masonry heaped up in ancient times beneath the eye of its noble builder! The day before yesterday the last thick icicle had fallen clattering from the open jaws of the lion’s head at the end of the gutter on the roof, above which the air was now quivering with heat from the sun-baked slate. The sap was swelling in the big brown chestnut-buds, making them glisten as if powdered with diamond-dust; a couple of pots containing some languishing plants had been put outside of the window of one of the miller’s rooms, to enjoy the first breath of spring; and upon the well-worn wooden steps leading from this very room was seated a dusty miller, eating a huge piece of bread-and-cheese.