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A Sister's Love: A Novel

by W. Heimburg · English · Gutenberg #33958 · 524,727 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Sister's Love: A Novel

Author: W. Heimburg

Translator: Margaret Payson Waterman


        
Release date: September 30, 2010 [eBook #33958]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33958

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SISTER'S LOVE: A NOVEL ***




Produced by Peter Vachuska, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









                           A SISTER'S LOVE

                              _A NOVEL_

                            BY W. HEIMBURG


    TRANSLATED BY
    MARGARET P. WATERMAN

    CHICAGO:
    M. A. DONOHUE & CO.
    407-429 DEARBORN ST.




A SISTER'S LOVE.




CHAPTER I.


A severe storm had been raging all day, and now, in the approaching
twilight, seemed as if it would overleap all bounds in its wild
confusion. Straight from the North Sea, over the broad Lueneburg heath,
it came rushing along, and beat against the gray walls of the
manor-house, shook the great elms in the garden, tossed about the
bushes, and blew from the bare branches the last yellow leaf yet spared
them by the November frost.

The great castle-like building, inhabited for centuries by the Von
Hegewitz family, looked dismal and gloomy under the cloud-laden sky; in
almost spectral gloom it lay there, with its sharply pointed gables, its
round tower, and heavy buttresses supporting the walls.

If did not always look thus, this old manor-house; in summer it was very
picturesque behind its green trees, the golden sunshine lying on its
slate roof, the pointed gables sharply outlined against the blue sky,
and the gray walls, framed by huge, old oaks, reflected in the brown
water of the pond. Beside it lay the farm-buildings and the houses of
the village, whose shingled roofs emerged in their turn from the foliage
of the fruit-trees. Far out into the Mark country extended the view,
over fields of waving corn, over green meadows and purple heath, bounded
on the horizon by the dark line of a pine forest. A narrow strip of pine
woods, besides, lay to the north, extending nearly to the garden, and on
hot summer afternoons an almost intoxicating fragrance was wafted from
it toward the quiet house.

Within it was still a real, old-fashioned German house; for there were
dim corridors and deep niches, great vaulted rooms and large alcoves,
little staircases with steep steps worn by many feet, and curious low
vaulted doors. A flight of steps would lead quite unexpectedly from one
room into the next, and here and there a door, instead of leading out of
a room, opened, to one's surprise, into a huge closet. Then there were
cemented floors, and great beams dividing the ceilings, and the smallest
of window-panes. And yet where could more real comfort be found than in
such an old house, especially when a November storm is howling without,
and here indoors great fir logs are crackling in the gay-tiled stove?

And just now, down the stairs from the upper story, came an old lady,
looking as if comfort itself came with the green silk knitting-bag on
her arm, her large lace cap, and the brown silk shawl over her
shoulders. She might have been in the fifties, this small, spare figure,
and she limped. Fraeulein Rosamond von Hegewitz had limped all her life,
and yet a more contented nature than hers did not exist. She now turned
to the left and walked along the narrow corridor. This was her regular
evening walk, as she went to her nephew and niece in the sitting-room--a
dear old walk, which she had taken for years, since the time when the
children were little, and her brother and sister-in-law were still
alive; when twilight came she could no longer endure the solitude of
her spinster's room.

Just as she was about to lay her hand on the bright brass door-handle,
she perceived by the dim light of the hall-lamp a girl who was sobbing
gently, her coarse linen apron thrown over her face.

"What are you crying about, Marieken?" asked the old lady kindly, coming
back a step or two. The curly brown head was raised, and a young face,
bathed in tears and now red from embarrassment, looked up at Fraeulein
Rosamond.

"Ah, gracious Fraeulein, I am to leave," she stammered, "and I----"

"Why, what have you--?" The old lady got no further, for just then the
door was opened a little way and the clear, full tones of a youthful
feminine voice came out into the corridor.

"That is my last word, Maertensen; I will not suffer such things in my
house. She may thank God that I have noticed her folly in good season.
Only think of Louisa Keller!"

"God in heaven, Fraeulein!" the person accosted replied in defence,
almost weeping. "The lass has done nothing bad, and he is certainly a
respectable man. O Fraeulein, when one is young one knows too----"

"For shame, Maertensen!" This came vehemently. "You know what I have
said. Take your Marieken and go. I will have no frivolous maids in my
house!"

The door was now opened wide, and an old woman came out, her wrinkled
face red with excitement.

"Come, lass," she called to the girl, who had just put her apron over
her eyes again; "troubles don't last forever! She'll feel it herself
some day yet! Driving away my girl as if she had been stealing!" And
without greeting the old lady, she seized her daughter by the arm and
drew her away with her.

Rosamond von Hegewitz turned slowly to the door. A half-mocking,
half-earnest expression lay on the wise old face. "_Bon soir_, Anna
Maria!" said she, as she entered the brightly lighted sitting-room.

A girl rose from the chair before the massive secretary, went toward the
new-comer, and received her with that formality which at the beginning
of our century had not yet disappeared from the circle of gentle
families, pressing to her lips the outstretched hand with an expression
of deepest respect.

"Good evening, aunt; how are you feeling?"

It was the same rich voice that had spoken before, and, like it, could
belong only to such a fresh young creature. Anna Maria von Hegewitz was
just turned eighteen, and the whole charm of these eighteen years was
woven about her slender figure and the rosy face under her braids of
fair hair. In contradiction to this girlishness, a pair of deep gray
eyes looked out from beneath the white forehead, seriously, and with
almost a look of experience, which, with a peculiar self-conscious
expression about the mouth, lent a certain austerity to the face.

"Thank you, my dear, I am well," replied the old lady, seating herself
at the round table before the sofa, upon which were burning four candles
in shining brass candlesticks. "Don't let me interrupt you, _ma
mignonne_. I see I have broken in upon your writing; are you writing to
Klaus?"

"I have only been looking over the grain accounts, aunt; I shall be done
in a moment. I shall not write again to Klaus, for he must return day
after to-morrow at the latest. If you will excuse me a moment----"

"Oh, certainly, child. I will occupy myself alone meanwhile." The old
lady drew her knitting-work from the silk bag and began to work, at the
same time glancing dreamily about the large, warm, comfortable room.

She had known it thus long since; nothing in it had been altered since
her youth--the same deep arm-chairs around the table, the artistic
inlaid cupboards, even the dark, stamped leather wall-paper was still
the same, and the old rococo clock still ticked its low, swift
to-and-fro, as if it could not make the time pass quickly enough. And
there at the desk, where the young niece was sitting, her only brother
had worked and calculated, and at that sewing-table on the estrade at
the window had been the favorite seat of the sister-in-law who died so
young. But how little resemblance there was between mother and daughter!

The old lady looked over toward her again. The girl's lips moved, and
the slender hand passed slowly with the pencil down the row of figures
on the paper. "Makes five hundred and seventy-five thaler, twenty-three
groschen," she said, half-aloud. "Correct!

"Now, then, Aunt Rosamond, I am at your service." She extinguished the
candle, locked the writing-desk, and bringing a pretty spinning-wheel
from the corner, sat down near her aunt, and soon the little wheel was
gently humming, and the slender fingers drawing the finest of thread
from the shining flax. For a while the room was quiet, the silence
broken only by the howling of the storm and the crackling of the burning
log in the stove.

"Anna Maria," began the old lady at last, "you know I never interfere
with your arrangements, so pardon me if I ask why you send Marieken
away."

"She has a love affair with Gottlieb," replied the niece, shortly.

"I am sorry for that, Anna Maria; she was always a girl who respected
herself; ought you to act so severely?"

"She gives him her supper secretly, and runs about the garden with him
on pitch-dark nights. I will not have such actions in my house, and know
that Klaus would not approve of it either." The words sounded strangely
from the young lips.

"Yes, Anna Maria "--Rosamond von Hegewitz smiled "if you will judge
thus! These people have quite different sentiments from us, and--and you
cannot know, I suppose, if their views are honest?"

"That is nothing to me!" replied Anna Maria. "They _cannot_ marry,
because they are both as poor as church mice. What is to come of it? The
girl must leave; you surely see that, dear aunt?"

The old lady now laughed aloud. "One can see, Anna Maria, that you know
nothing yet of a real attachment, or you would not proceed in so
dictatorial a manner."

The slightest change came over the young face. "I _will_ not know it,
either!" she declared firmly, almost turning away.

"But, sweetheart," came from the old voice almost anxiously, "do you
think that it will always be so with you? You are eighteen years old--do
you think your heart will live on thus without ever feeling a passion?
And do you expect the same of your brother, Anna Maria? Klaus is still
so young----"

The little foot stopped on the treadle of the wheel, and the gray eyes
looked in amazement at the speaker.

"Don't you know then, aunt, that it is a long-established matter that
Klaus and I should always stay together? Klaus promised our mother on
her death-bed that he would never leave me. And I go away from Klaus?
Oh, sooner--sooner may the sky fall! Don't speak of such possibilities,
Aunt Rosamond. It is absurd even to think of."

"Pardon me, Anna Maria"--the words sounded almost solemn--"I was present
when your dying mother took from Klaus his promise never to leave you,
always to protect you. But at the same time to forbid him to love
another woman, a woman whom his heart might choose, she surely did not
intend!"

"Aunt Rosamond!" cried the girl, almost threateningly.

"No, my child, I repeat it, your mother was much too wise, much too
just, to wish such a thing; she was too happy in her own marriage to
wish her children--But, _mon Dieu_, I am exciting myself quite
uselessly; you have such a totally false conception of this promise."

"Klaus told me so himself, Aunt Rosamond," declared the girl, in a tone
which made contradiction impossible.

Aunt Rosamond was silent; she knew well that all talking would be vain,
and that nothing in the world could convince Anna Maria that any object
worthy of love beside her beloved brother could exist. "_Nous verrons,
ma petite_," thought she, "you will not be spared the experience
either!"

And now her thoughts wandered far back into the past, to the night when
Anna Maria was born. A terrible night! And as they passed on, there came
a day still more terrible; in the heavy wooden cradle, adorned with
crests, lay, indeed, the sweetly sleeping child, but the mother's eyes
had closed forever, not, however, without first looking, with a fervid,
anguished expression, at the little creature that must go through life
without a mother's love! And beside her bed had knelt a boy of fifteen,
who had to promise over and over again to love the little sister, and
protect and shield her.

How often had Aunt Rosamond told this to the child as she grew up; how
often described to her how she had been baptized by her mother's coffin,
how her brother had held her in his arms and pressed her so closely to
him, and wept so bitterly. Indeed, indeed, there was not another brother
like Klaus von Hegewitz, that Aunt Rosamond knew best of all.

She remembered how he had watched for nights at the child's bed when she
lay ill with measles; with what unwearied patience he had borne with her
whims, now even as then; how carefully he had marked out a course of
instruction and selected teachers for her, looked up lectures for her,
read and rode with her, and did everything that the most careful
parental love alone can do, and even more--much more! Indeed, Anna Maria
knew nothing of a parent's love; the father had always been a peculiar
person, especially so after the death of his wife: it almost seemed as
if he could not love the child whose life had cost a life. He was rarely
at home; half the year he lived in Berlin, coming back to the old
manor-house only at the hunting season. But never alone; he was always
accompanied by a young man, a Baron Stuermer, owner of the neighboring
estate of Dambitz, and two years older than Klaus.

It was a singular friendship which had existed between these two men.
Hegewitz, well on in the sixties, gloomy and unsociable, and from his
youth distrustful of every one, and not even amiable toward his own
children, was affable only to his friend, so much younger. To this
moment Aunt Rosamond distinctly remembered the pale, nobly-formed face
with the fiery brown eyes and the dark hair. How gratefully she
remembered him! He had been the only one who understood how to mediate
between father and son, the only one who, with admirable firmness, had
again and again led the struggling little girl to her father; and he did
all this out of that incomprehensible friendship. The two used to play
chess together late into the night; they rode and hunted together; and
still one other passion united them--they collected antiquities.

They searched the towns and villages for miles about for old carved
chests, clocks, porcelain, and pictures, and would dispute all night as
to whether a certain picture, bought at an auction, was by this or that
master, whether it was an original or a copy. They often remained away
for days on their excursions, and the treasures they won were then
artistically arranged in a tower-room--"a regular rag-shop," Aunt
Rosamond had once said in banter. "I only wonder they don't get me too
for this '_Collection Antique_.'" After the death of Hegewitz this
really valuable collection was found to be made over, by will, to Baron
Stuermer, "because Klaus did not understand such things." Stuermer
accepted the bequest, but he had it appraised by a person intelligent in
such matters, and paid the value to the heirs. Klaus von Hegewitz
refused to accept the sum, and so the two men agreed to found an
almshouse for the two villages of Buetze and Dambitz.

That had happened ten years ago, and the collecting furor of the old
gentleman had borne good results.

Soon after his death, Baron Stuermer went away on a journey; he had long
wished to travel, and had deferred his cherished plan only on his old
friend's account. His first goals had been Italy, Constantinople, and
Greece; he went to Egypt, he visited South America, Norway and Sweden,
and had travelled through Russia and the Caucasus. No one knew where he
was staying at present. He had written seldom of late years, at last not
at all; but his memory still lived in Buetze. Only Anna Maria no longer
spoke of him; indeed, she scarcely remembered him now: she was just
eight years old when he went away. Only this she still knew: that Uncle
Stuermer had often taken her by the hand and led her to her father, and
that at such times her heart had always beaten more quickly from fear.
Anna Maria had stood in real awe of her father, and when he died and was
buried, not a tear flowed from the child's eyes. Her entire affection
belonged to her brother, as she used to say, full of pride and love for
him.

Aunt Rosamond had never been able to exert the slightest influence over
the girl's independent character.

As soon as Anna Maria was confirmed, she hung the bunch of keys at her
belt, and took up the reins of housekeeping with an energy and
circumspection that aroused the admiration of all, and especially of the
old aunt, who was particularly struck by it, since she herself was a
tender, weak type of woman, to whom such energy in one of her own sex
could but seem incomprehensible.

Anna Maria spun on quietly as all these thoughts succeeded each other
behind the wrinkled brow of her companion. She could sit and spin thus
whole evenings, without saying a word; she was quite different from
other girls! She did not allow a bird or a flower in her room, nor did
she ever wear a flower or a ribbon as an ornament. And yet one could
scarcely imagine a more high-bred appearance than hers. Whether she were
walking, in her house dress, through kitchen and cellar, or receiving
guests in the drawing-room, as happened two or three times a year, she
lost nothing in comparison with other ladies and girls; on the contrary,
she had a certain superiority to them, and Aunt Rosamond would sometimes
say to herself: "The others are like geese beside _her_!"--"Yes, what
may happen here yet?" she asked herself with a sigh.

"A letter for the Fraeulein!" A youth of perhaps twenty-five years,
dressed in simple dark livery, handed Anna Maria a letter.

"From Klaus!" she cried joyfully, but held the letter in her hand
without opening it, and fixed her eyes upon the firm, resolute face of
the servant.

"Well, Gottlieb, what is the matter with you?" she asked. "You look as
if your wheat had been utterly ruined."

"Gracious Fraeulein," the youth replied, with hesitation yet firmly, "the
master will have to look about for some one else--I am going away at New
Year."

"Have you gone mad?" cried Anna Maria, frowning. "What is it here that
you object to?" She had risen and stepped up to the youth. "As for the
rest," she continued, "I can imagine why you have such folly in your
head. Because I have sent away Marieken Maertens, do you wish to go too?
Very well, I will not keep you; you may go; there are plenty of people
who would take your place. But if your father knew it he would turn in
his grave. Do you know how long your father served at Buetze?"

"Fifty-eight years, Fraeulein," replied the young fellow at once.

"Fifty-eight years! And his son runs away from the service in which his
father grew old and gray, after a frivolous girl! Very well, you shall
have your way; but mind, any one who once goes away from here--never
returns. You may go."

The servant's face grew deep red at the reproachful words of his young
mistress; he turned slowly to the door and left the room.

Anna Maria had meanwhile broken the great crested seal, and was reading.
"Klaus is coming day after to-morrow!" After reading awhile, now as
happy as a child, she cried to the old lady: "Just hear, Aunt Rosamond,
what else he writes. I will read it aloud.

"'I found my old Mattoni over his books as usual, but it seemed to me he
looked ill. I asked him about it, but he declared he was well. A
proposal to come and recuperate next summer in our beautiful country air
he dismissed with a shake of the head, "he had no time!" He is an
incorrigible bookworm.

"'But now here is something particularly interesting! Do you know whom I
met yesterday "Unter den Linden," sunburned and scarcely recognizable?
Edwin Stuermer! He was standing by a picture-store, and I beside him for
some time, without a suspicion of each other; we were looking at some
pretty water-colors by Heuselt. All at once a hand was laid on my arm,
and a familiar voice cried: "Upon my word, Klaus, if you had not
developed that fine beard, I should have recognized you sooner!"

"'I was exceedingly glad to see Edwin again, and rejoice still more at
the future prospect. The old vagabond is going to fold his wings at
last, and take care of his estate. He is coming shortly to Dambitz;
consequently we shall have a good friend again near us. As for the
rest, he wouldn't believe that you have become a young lady and no
longer wear long braids and short dresses.'"

Anna Maria stopped, and looked into the distance, as if recalling
something. "I don't know exactly now how he looked," she said. "He wore
a full black beard, didn't he, aunt, and must be very old now?"

"No indeed, _mon coeur_; he may be thirty-five at the most."

"That is certainly old, Aunt Rosamond!"

"That is the way young people judge," said the old lady, smiling.

"It may be, aunt," said Anna Maria, and put the letter in her pocket.
She had begun to spin again, when an old woman in a dazzlingly white
apron entered the room.

"Gracious Fraeulein," she began respectfully, yet familiarly, "Marieken
is off, and has made a great commotion in the house, and the eldest of
the Weber girls has just applied for the place, but she asks for twelve
thaler for wages and a jacket at Christmas!"

"Ten thaler, and Christmas according to the way she conducts herself,"
Anna Maria replied, without looking up.

The housekeeper disappeared, but returned after awhile.

"Eleven thaler and a jacket, Fraeulein; she will not come otherwise," she
reported. "You can surely give her that; she has no lover, and will
hardly get one, for she is already well on in years, and----"

Anna Maria drew a purse from her pocket, and laid an eight-groschen
piece on the table. "The advance-money, Brockelmann; do you know that
Gottlieb wishes to leave?"

"Oh, dear, yes, Fraeulein." The old woman was quite embarrassed. "I am
sorry; he doted upon the lass at one time, and at last--oh, heavens,
fraeulein, one has been young too, and if two people love each
other--see, Fraeulein, it is just as if one had drunk deadly hemlock. I
mean no offence, but you will know it yet some day, and, if God will,
may the handsomest and best man in the world come to Buetze and take you
home!"

The old woman had spoken affectingly, and looked at her young mistress
with brightening eyes. Only she would have dared to touch on this point.
She had been Anna Maria's nurse, and a remnant of tenderness toward her
was still hidden somewhere in the girl's heart.

"Brockelmann, you cannot keep from talking," she cried, serenely. "You
know I shall _never_ marry. What would the master do without me? Is
supper ready?"

"The master!" said the good woman, without regarding the last question.
"He ought to marry too! As if it were not high time for him; he will be
thirty-three years old at Martinmas!"




CHAPTER II.


A few days afterward Edwin Stuermer came to Buetze. Anna Maria was
standing just on the lower staircase landing, in the great stone-paved
entrance-hall, a basket of red-cheeked apples on her arm, and
Brockelmann stood near her with a candle in her hand. The unsteady light
of the flickering candle fell on the immediate surroundings, and, like
an old picture of Rembrandt's, the fair head of the girl stood out from
the darkness of the wide hall. Round about her there was a great hue and
cry; all the children of the village seemed to be collected there, and
sang with a sort of scream, to a monotonous air, the old Martinmas
ditty:

    "Martins, martins, pretty things,
    With your little golden wings,
    To the Rhine now fly away,
    To-morrow is St. Martin's Day.
    Marieken, Marieken, open the door,
    Two poor rogues are standing before!
    Little summer, little summer, rose's leaf,
          City fair,
    Give us something, O maiden fair!"

They were just beginning a new song when the heavy entrance-door opened,
and Baron Stuermer came in. Anna Maria did not see him at once, for,
according to an old custom of St. Martin's Eve, she was throwing a
handful of apples right among the little band, who pounced upon them
with cries and shouts. Only when a man's head rose up straight before
her, by the heavily carved banister, she glanced up, and looked into a
pale face framed by dark hair and beard, and into a pair of shining
brown eyes.

For an instant Anna Maria was startled, and a blush of embarrassment
spread over her face; then she held out her hand to him and bade him
welcome. Far from youthful was her manner of speaking and acting.

"Be still!" she called, in her ringing voice, to the noisy children; and
as silence immediately ensued, she added, turning to Stuermer: "They are
meeting me on important business, Herr von Stuermer, but I shall be ready
to leave at once; will you go up to Klaus for awhile?"

He kept on looking at her, still holding her right hand; he had not
heard what she said at all. With quick impatience, at length she
withdrew her hand.

"Brockelmann, bring the candle here, and take the gentleman to my
brother," she ordered; but then, as if changing her mind, she threw the
whole basketful of apples at once among the children, who scrambled for
them, screaming wildly. The baron made his way with difficulty through
the groping throng to the stairs, where Anna Maria was now standing
motionless, and with earnest gaze regarding the man who in her childhood
had so often held her in his arms, and had so many a kind word for her.

Yes, it was he again; the slender figure of medium height, the dark face
with the flashing eyes--and yet how different!

Anna Maria had to admit to herself that it was a handsome man who was
coming up the steps just then; and old? She had to smile. "One sees
quite differently with a child's eyes!" she said to herself. Was it not
as if years were blotted out, and he was coming up as in the old times,
to hold her fast by her braids and say, "Don't run so, Anna Maria"?

Silently up the stairs they went together, to the top, their steps
reechoing from the walls.

It really seemed now to Anna Maria as if her childhood had returned, the
sweet, remote childhood, with a thousand bright, innocent hours.
Involuntarily she held out to him her slender hand, and he seized it
quickly and forced the maiden to stand still. The sound of the
children's shouting came indistinctly to them up here; there was no one
beside them in the dim corridor.

Words of pleasure at seeing the friend of her childhood again trembled
on Anna Maria's lips, but when she tried to speak the man's eyes met
hers, and her mouth remained closed. Slowly, and still looking at her,
he drew the slender hand to his lips; she allowed it as if in a dream,
then hastily caught her hand away.

"What is that?" she asked, half in jest, half in anger; "I gave you my
hand because I was glad to greet the uncle of my childhood, and an
uncle----"

"May not kiss one's hand," he supplied, a smile flitting over his face.
Anna Maria did not see it, having stepped forward into the sitting-room.
"A visitor, Klaus!" she called into the room, which was still dark.

"Ah!" at once replied a man's voice. "Stuermer, is it you? Welcome,
welcome! You find us quite in the dark. We were just talking of you, and
of old times; were we not, Aunt Rosamond?"

A merry greeting followed, an invitation to supper was given and
accepted, and Klaus von Hegewitz called for lights.

"Oh, let us chat a little longer in the dark," said Aunt Rosamond. "Who
knows but we should seem stranger to each other if a candle were
lighted? Does it not seem, _cher baron_, as if it were yesterday that
you were sitting here with us, and yet----"

"It is ten years ago, Stuermer," finished Klaus.

"Truly!" assented Stuermer, "ten years!"

"Oh, but how happy we have been here," the old lady ran on. "Do you
remember, Stuermer, how you carried me off once in the most festive
manner, in a sleigh, and on the way the mad idea came to you to drive on
past our godfather's, and then you landed us both so softly in the
deepest snow-drift--me in my best dress, the green brocade, you know,
that you always called my parrot's costume?"

Klaus laughed heartily. "_A propos_, Stuermer," he asked, "have you seen
Anna Maria yet?"

"Yes, indeed, I have already had the honor, on the landing down-stairs,"
replied the baron.

"The honor? Heavens, how ceremonious! Did you hear, dear?" asked the
brother. But no answer came. "Anna Maria!" he then called.

"She is not here," said Aunt Rosamond, groping about to find the way out
of the room. "But it is really too dark here," she added.

"Why haven't you married, Hegewitz?" Stuermer asked abruptly.

"I might pass the question back to you," replied Klaus. "But let us
leave that alone, Stuermer, I will tell you something about it another
time." Klaus von Hegewitz had risen and stepped to the nearest window;
for a while silence reigned in the quiet room. Stuermer regretted having
touched upon a topic that evidently aroused painful emotions.

"Every one has his experiences, Stuermer, so why should we be spared?"
Klaus turned around, beginning to speak again. "But it is overcome now.
I do not think about it any more," he added. "Will you have another
cigar?"

"Not think about it any more?" cried the baron, not hearing the last
question. He laughed aloud. "At thirty-four? My dear Klaus, what will
become of you, then, when Aunt Rosamond dies and Anna Maria marries?"

"Anna Maria? I haven't thought about that yet, Stuermer; she is still so
young, and--although--But one can see that it is possible to live so:
you give the best example!" Klaus was out of humor.

The baron did not reply. He soon turned the conversation to agricultural
matters, and a discussion over esparcet and fodder was first interrupted
by the announcement that supper was served.

Aunt Rosamond had, meanwhile, gone through the main hall and knocked at
a door at the end of the passage. Anna Maria's voice called, "Come in!"
She, too, was sitting in the dark, but she rose and lit a candle. The
light illuminated her whole face. "Anna Maria, are you ill?" her aunt
asked anxiously, and stepped nearer.

"Not exactly ill, aunt, but I have a headache."

"You have taken cold; why do you ride out in this sharp wind? You are
both inconsiderate, you and Klaus! Show me your pulse--of course, on the
gallop; go to bed, Anna Maria."

"After supper, aunt; what would Klaus say if I were not there?"

"But you are really looking badly, Anna Maria."

The young girl laughed, took her bunch of keys in her hand and thus
compelled Aunt Rosamond to go with her. "Don't worry," she bade her,
"and above all, don't say anything to Klaus. He might think it worse
than it is."

"Klaus, and always, only Klaus--_incroyable_!" murmured the old lady.

       *       *       *       *       *

"If that wasn't a remarkable company at table this evening," said Klaus
von Hegewitz, as he reaentered the sitting-room, after escorting Baron
Stuermer down-stairs. "You, Anna Maria, did not say a word, and the
conversation dragged along till it nearly died out; if Aunt Rosamond had
not kept the thing up, why--really, it was peculiar. But how nice it is
when we are by ourselves, isn't it, little sister?"

He had put his arm around Anna Maria, who stood at the table, looking
toward the window as if listening for something, and looked lovingly in
her face.

The brother and sister resembled each other unmistakably in their
features, except that beside his earnestness a winning kindness spoke
from the brother's eyes, and the harsh lines about his mouth were hidden
by a handsome beard.

"Yes," she replied quietly.

"Now tell me, little sister, why you were so--so, what shall I call
it--icy toward Stuermer?"

Anna Maria looked over at her brother and was silent.

"Now out with it!" he said jokingly. "Didn't Stuermer treat you with
sufficient deference, or----"

"Klaus!" She grew very red. "I will tell you," she then said; "the
recollections of old times came between us and spoke louder than words;
my childhood passed before my eyes, and--" She broke off, and looked up
at him; it was a sad look, yet full of unspeakable gratitude. Klaus drew
her to him, and pressed the fair head to his breast with his large white
hand.

"My old lass, you're not going to cry?" he asked tenderly; but he, too,
was moved.

She took his hand and pressed a kiss upon it. "Dear, dear Klaus," she
said softly, "I was only thinking how it would have been if you had not
loved me so very, very much?"

Klaus von Hegewitz was silent, and looked thoughtfully down at her.
"Quite different, my little Anna Maria," said he at last; "it would have
been quite different--whether better? Who can fathom that; it must have
been so----"

She looked up at him in astonishment, he had spoken so slowly and
earnestly. Then he stroked her forehead, pressed his sister to him
again, and then turned quietly to the corner-shelf and took down his
favorite pipe.

"There, now we will make ourselves comfortable," said he. "Come, Anna
Maria, 'Tante Voss' is very interesting to-day."

       *       *       *       *       *

Anna Maria stood long at her bedroom window and looked at the drifting
clouds of the night-sky. Now and then the moon peeped out, and tinged
the edges of the clouds with silver light; as they sped in strange forms
over her golden disk, there was a continual change in the fantastic
shapes, but Anna Maria saw it not. Confused thoughts chased each other
about in her brain, like the clouds above, and now and then, like the
brilliant constellation, a bright look from the long-known dark eyes
came before her mind. "It is the memory of childhood," she said to
herself, "yes, the memory!"

Twelve o'clock struck from the church-tower near by, as, shivering with
cold, she stepped back from the window. She heard hasty steps coming
along the corridor; she knew it was Brockelmann going to bed. The next
moment she had opened the door; she hardly knew herself first what she
wanted, when the old woman was already crossing the threshold.

"You are not sleeping yet, Fraeulein? Ah, it is well that you are still
awake. I had a fine fright a little while ago. What do you think,
Marieken Maertens, the crazy thing, tried to drown herself; a man from
the village pulled her out of the pond."

Anna Maria had grown white as a corpse; she had to sit down on the edge
of her bed, and her great eyes looked in sheer amazement at the old
woman. "What for?" she asked hastily, and almost sharply.

"Indeed, Fraeulein, for what else but because of the stupid affair with
Gottlieb? You know what his mother is. Marieken did not dare go home all
at once--there are mouths enough to feed: so her sweetheart took her
home to his mother, and she told him he should not come to her with a
girl whom the gracious Fraeulein had dismissed, that he must not think of
marrying the girl as long as she lived; you know, Fraeulein, the old
woman swears by the family here. And so the stupid thing took it into
her head to go into the water."

Anna Maria looked silently before her, and her whole body shook as if
she had a chill.

"Heavens, you are ill!" cried the old woman.

"No, no," the girl denied, "I am not ill; go, only go; I am tired and
want to sleep."

Brockelmann went to her room, shaking her head. "Well, well," she
murmured, "I did think she would be sorry for the poor girl, but no!"
She sighed, and closed the door behind her. But toward morning she was
suddenly startled from her slumber by the violent ringing of a bell in
her room.

"Good heavens, Anna Maria!" she cried. "She is ill!" In her heart the
old woman still called her young mistress by her child's name. Hastily
throwing on one or two garments she hurried through the cold passage,
just lighted by the gray dawn. Anna Maria was sitting upright in her
bed, a candle was burning on the table by her side, and lit up a face
worn with weeping. The old woman saw plainly that the girl had been
weeping, though she extinguished the candle at once.

"Brockelmann!" she called to her, but not as usual in the old imperious
manner, and she now hesitated; "as soon as it is light, send for
Gottlieb's mother; I want to talk with her about the girl. And now go,"
she added, as the old woman was about to say something, "I am so tired
to-day!"




CHAPTER III.


"The time passes away, one scarcely knows what has become of it; even in
my solitude, it does not seem long to me. Really, the starlings are here
already. Where has the winter gone? Strange!"

Aunt Rosamond held this soliloquy at her chamber-window, as her gaze
followed the little messengers of spring, who vanished so briskly into
the wooden boxes, a large number of which had been placed for them on
the trees and buildings. It was no sunny spring day there without; the
clouds hung low and gray over the earth, and a warm, sultry wind tossed
about the budding branches unmercifully, as if to shake them into
complete awakening.

The old lady did not like the overcast sky at all, it put her out of
humor. She could not wander about far out of doors, to be sure, but she
would fain have seen the little spot of earth that lay stretched out
before her window looking cheerful, and blue sky and sunshine lighting
up the fresh green of the meadows, and the oaks in foliage.

"It ought to be always May or September here in the Mark," she used to
say; "then it would be the loveliest country in the world. In winter one
does best to draw the curtains, so as not to cast a single look out of
doors, it looks so melancholy outside, brown upon brown, with a shade of
dirty gray."

And so she turned from the window and its dull outlook, and limped
quickly through the room, here and there arranging or straightening
something. That was such a habit of hers. Now the candelabra on the
spinet were moved a little, and now the delicate, withered hands picked
a yellow leaf from a plant on the flower-stand, or gave an improving
touch to the canopied bed which so pretentiously occupied an entire side
of the room. Aunt Rosamond called that her throne; one had to climb up a
pair of carpeted steps to reach it, and with its crimson silk hangings,
somewhat faded indeed, and gilded knobs, it really gave you the
impression of one. Then here and there she pushed back a coverlet or
straightened a picture which tipped a little to one side. The latter she
did most frequently, for the high walls were almost covered with
pictures, a collection of portraits, mostly in oil or pastel. Aunt
Rosamond knew a history about each one of the faces that looked so
quietly from the frames in her room; she had known them all, these men
and women there above, and strangely enough it sounded to hear her, as
she stood before some picture, tell its story in a few words.

She had just limped to a card-table, over which was hung an oval pastel
portrait of a man with curled and powdered hair and a blue silk coat.
She gave the portrait a gentle push toward the right, but whether it was
the cord or the nail that had become loose, matters not, down fell the
picture, and lay face downward before Aunt Rosamond.

"Let it lie, aunt, I beg you!" called Anna Maria's voice at this moment;
and before the old lady could collect herself, the girl had bent her
slender form, and handed her the picture.

"_Merci, ma petite!_" she cried kindly, and looked into her niece's
face; and, indeed, if Aunt Rosamond missed the spring without, now it
had come, bodily, into her room.

Anna Maria still had on a dark-blue riding-habit which closely fitted
her fine, strong figure, and the young face looked out from behind the
blue veil with such a spring-like freshness, that it quite warmed Aunt
Rosamond's heart.

"Have you been riding, Anna Maria?" asked the old lady, as the girl
endeavored to find the fallen nail.

"Yes, aunt, I rode with Klaus for an hour on the Dambitz cross-road;
afterward we met Stuermer by chance, and took a cup of coffee at Dambitz
Manor."

"Indeed!" Aunt Rosamond seemed quite indifferent to this, although she
looked searchingly at the reddening face of her niece, who, apparently,
was very attentively regarding the rescued nail in her hand.

"Are the snow-drops in bloom already at Dambitz?" inquired the old lady.
"Well, the garden lies well protected. But what do you say, Anna Maria,
will you stay and rest with me? I think we will sit down a little
while--_n'est-ce pas, mon coeur_?"

Anna Maria stood irresolute; she looked over at her aunt, who had
already seated herself on the straight-backed, gayly flowered sofa, and
pointed invitingly to an easy-chair. It was so comfortable in this cosey
old room; the rococo clock with the Cupid bending his bow told its low
tick-tack, and a sudden shower beat against the window panes; it was a
little hour just made for chatting of all sorts of possible things, of
the past and of the future.

Anna Maria slowly seated herself in the chair; she neither leaned back
gracefully and comfortably nor rested her fair head on the cushions.
Always straight as a candle, she carried herself perfectly, and so she
remained now. But sudden blushes and deep pallor interchanged on her
face, which turned with an expression of perfect, modest maidenliness
toward the old lady's face. One could see that she wished to say
something, and that her severe, unsympathetic nature was struggling with
an overflowing heart.

Her aunt did not seem to notice it at all; she had taken up a book whose
once green velvet binding was worn and faded with age. The delicate
fingers turned leaf after leaf; then she glanced over a page, and after
a pause said:

"Actually, Anna Maria, Felix Leonhard has fallen from the wall on his
birthday; how singular! Now people call that chance, but how strange it
is! I have always remembered the day hitherto, until to-day, and have
been going about all the time with a feeling as if I had forgotten
something, I could not exactly think what And then he announced himself.
_Mon pauvre_ Felix! You shall have your flowers to-day, as every year."
And she caressingly touched the picture before her on the table. Then
she looked over to Anna Maria almost shyly, for she knew that her niece
sometimes smiled scornfully at signs and forebodings.

But to-day the deep line about Anna Maria's mouth was not to be seen;
she looked thoughtfully at the picture, and asked: "Who was Felix
Leonhard, aunt?"

"An early friend of my brother's," replied the old lady.

"Is he the one, aunt--I think you told me a strange story once about
some one shooting himself for the sake of a girl?"

"Yes, yes, quite right, my child. This gay, handsome man once took a
pistol and shot himself for the sake of a girl; quite right, Anna
Maria. And he was no youth then, he was well on in the thirties, and yet
did this horrible deed, unworthy of a peaceable man. Oh, it was a misery
not to be described, Anna Maria!" She shook her head and passed her
hands over her eyes, as if to frighten away a horrible picture.

"Why did he do it, aunt?" asked Anna Maria, in an unusually warm tone;
"was she faithless to him, or----"

"She did not love him, _ma petite_; she had been persuaded by her
parents and brothers and sisters to become engaged to him. He was in
most excellent circumstances, and one of the best men I ever knew. He
became acquainted with her at a ball in Berlin, and fell violently in
love with her, although before that no one had ever considered his a
passionate nature. She was not young at the time, not even particularly
pretty, and with the exception of a pair of melancholy great eyes did
not possess a charm. _Eh bien_, after endless doubts and struggles, she
accepted his suit. The engagement lasted a whole year, and she was as
shy and discreet a _fiancee_ as could be found; he, on the other hand,
was full of touching attentions to her; indeed, to use a worn-out
figure, he carried her about in his hands. The nearer the wedding-day
approached, the more dreadful grew the poor girl's state of mind. She
had repeatedly asked various people if they believed she could make her
lover happy, and she was always turned off with a jest, yet quite
seriously as well, on the part of her brothers and sisters. Then on the
wedding-day, half an hour before the ceremony was to take place, pale
and trembling, she announced that she must take back her word, she could
not speak perjury--she did not love him, and she did not wish his
unhappiness! Ah, I shall never forget that day--the anxious faces of the
guests as the report of this refusal began to spread, and the terrible
anger of her brother. What followed in her room was never made public; I
only know that she persisted in her refusal, and that same evening he
shot himself in the garden. _Voila tout!_"

Anna Maria was silent; she had turned pale. "And _she_, aunt?" asked the
girl after a pause.

"She! Well, she lived on, and even married not very long afterward; she
did not love him at all, Anna Maria. Who knows his own heart?"

For an instant it seemed as if Anna Maria was about to answer, but she
closed her lips again. The room was still. She was leaning back now; she
was almost trembling, and her eyes turned thoughtfully to the picture
before her. Without, the rain was beating with increased force against
the windows, and the wind drove great snowflakes about in a whirling
dance, between whiles; April weather, fighting and struggling, storming
and raging, so spring will come.

The old lady on the sofa looked out on this raging of the elements, and
thought how such a powerful spring storm rages in every human heart, and
how scarcely a person in the world is spared such a fight and struggle;
she knew it from her own experience, though she was only a poor cripple,
and a hundred times had she seen the storm rage in the breast of
another. To many, indeed, out of the struggle and longing, out of snow
and sunshine, had arisen a spring as beautiful as a dream; but for many
was the stormy April weather followed by a frosty May, killing all
blossoms; as for herself, as for Kla--She left the thought unfinished,
and quickly turned her head toward her niece, as if fearing she might
have guessed her thoughts. And then--she was almost confounded--then
the young girl's rosy face bent down to her, and Aunt Rosamond saw a
shining drop in the eyes always so cold and clear. Anna Maria sat down
beside her on the figured sofa, and threw her soft arms about her neck.

The heart of the old lady beat faster; it was the first time in her life
that Anna Maria had showed any tenderness toward her. She sat quite
still, as in a dream, as if the slightest movement might frighten the
girl away, like a timid bird. And "Aunt Rosamond!" came the half-sobbing
sound in her ear. "Oh, aunt, help me--advise me--for Klaus----"

Just then the door was quickly thrown open. "The master sends word for
the Fraeulein to come down-stairs at once," called Brockelmann, quite out
of breath. "He can't find Isaac Aron's receipts for the last delivery of
grain, and----"

"I am coming! I am coming!" called the girl. She had sprung up, and
quickly thrown the skirt of her riding-habit over her arm. The spell was
broken; there stood Anna Maria von Hegewitz again, the mistress of
Buetze, as firm, as full of business as ever.

She crossed the room with quick steps, but turning again at the door,
she said softly, and embarrassed, "I will come up again this evening,
aunt." Then she closed the door behind her.

Aunt Rosamond remained as still as a mouse in her sofa-corner; she had
to reflect whether this blushing, caressing girl who had just been
sitting beside her were really Anna Maria von Hegewitz, her niece. She
passed her hand over her forehead, and confused thoughts passed through
her mind. "_Quelle metamorphose!_" she whispered to herself, and at
length said aloud, "Anna Maria is certainly in love; love only makes
one so gentle, so--_je ne sais quoi_! Anna Maria loves Stuermer! How
disagreeable that Brockelmann happened to come in with her grain bills!
_Mon Dieu!_ the child, the child! I wonder if Klaus suspects it? What is
to become of you, my splendid old boy, if Anna Maria goes away? But what
if he should marry, too?"

She rose from the sofa and stepped to the window again. It had stopped
raining, and a last lingering ray of sunshine broke from the clouds and
was spread, like a golden veil, over the wet, budding trees and shrubs.
"Spring is coming," she said half aloud. And now she began to walk up
and down the room, but this time the pictures were undisturbed. Her
hands were clasped, and now and then she shook her gray head gently, as
if incredulously.




CHAPTER IV.


Meanwhile Anna Maria had gone quickly down-stairs and entered her
brother's room. He was sitting at his desk, rummaging about in the
drawers for the missing papers. Klaus von Hegewitz was exactly like
other men in this respect, that he never could find anything, and grew
so vexed in hunting, that from very irritation he found nothing. At the
door stood the farm inspector and a little old man who was well known at
Buetze, Isaac Aron the Jew. He made a deep reverence to Anna Maria, and
said contentedly: "Now matters will be brought into good shape; the
gracious Fraeulein knows the place of everything in the whole house."

Anna Maria paid no attention to this, but, going to the desk,
confidently put her hand into a drawer, and gave a little packet of
papers to her brother. "There, Klaus," said she, looking with a smile in
his flushed face, "why did you not call me at once?"

The troubled face grew bright. "Upon my word, Anna Maria," he cried
gayly, "these are stupid things; I have had that package in my hands
twenty times at least. A thousand thanks! I say again and again, Anna
Maria, what would become of me without you?"

The smile suddenly disappeared from her face, and she looked
thoughtfully at the stately figure of her brother, who had stepped up to
the men and was negotiating with them. The words fell on her ears as in
a dream, and quite mechanically she took up her train and walked out of
the room. As she was about to close the door, her brother called after
her: "Anna Maria, shall I meet you by and by in the sitting-room? The
gardener wants to talk with us about the new work in the wood."

She had no idea, as she stood outside, whether or not she had answered
him; then she sat down in her room, and her eyes wandered about the
familiar spot and rested at length on her brother's portrait. But she
saw it not; in her mind was another picture, another man's head. The
red-tiled roof of Dambitz Manor rose before her eyes, and over him and
her the brown, budding branches of the linden-walk in the Dambitz garden
fluttered and beat in the damp spring air, and at their feet long rows
of snow-drops bloomed and shook their little white heads.

"Anna Maria," he had called her, "Anna Maria," as in her childhood. She
started up, as if awakening from a long, deep dream. Ah, no! it was
true; scarcely an hour ago he had spoken thus to her, and Anna Maria von
Hegewitz had stood before him as if under a spell.

What else had he said? She knew no longer, only the words "Anna Maria"
sounded to her very soul; and as on that St. Martin's Eve she had put
her hands in his, and he had drawn her close to him--only one short
moment, she scarcely knew whether it were dream or reality. Then Klaus
had come down the steps--"Klaus! ah, Heaven, Klaus!"

She leaned her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes.
She saw herself going away from the old house here. Could her foot cross
the threshold? And she saw Klaus looking in the door-way, looking after
her with his kind, true eyes, perhaps with tears in them. And there came
to her all the words which she had so often spoken to him, caressingly:
"_I will stay with you, Klaus, always, always!_" And now the strong
girl began to weep; she scarcely knew what tears were, but now they
gushed from her eyes with all the force of a shaken soul.

And yet above all this pain there hovered a feeling of infinite
happiness, through the dark veil of sadness gleamed bright rays--the
premonitions of a wonderful future, the suspicion that the life which
she had led hitherto was hardly to be called living, because that one
thing had been wanting which first consecrates and gives value to a
happy life.

She rose and went up to her brother's portrait. "Klaus, dear Klaus, I
cannot help it, indeed!" she whispered; and then she wandered about the
room, a tender smile on her lips, and a laugh in her eyes.

The sound of the servants' supper-bell roused her from her dreams; she
changed her riding-habit for a house-dress, but laid the snow-drops in
the Bible on her writing-desk, and gave the little white blossoms a
caressing touch before she took up her basket of keys to leave the room.
She was met on the way to the sitting-room by a fresh, curly-haired
girl, carrying an armful of flashing brass candlesticks, her black eyes
almost as bright as the shining metal.

"Well, Marieken," asked Anna Maria, "is the outfit ready?"

The brisk girl laughed all over her face. "Oh, not quite, Fraeulein; but
it is three weeks to Easter, and Gottlieb is painting the rooms now in
our house, and the cabinet-maker is going to bring our things next
week."

Anna Maria nodded kindly, but did not reply. Her thoughts were already
again in Dambitz, wandering through the rooms of the castle. Most of
them were still empty, but a time was doubtless coming for her too when
the cabinet-maker would bring her things. And Anna Maria looked at the
girl and smiled; she knew not why herself; it was from overflowing
happiness. And Marieken laughed too--a perfect harmony of youth, hope,
and happiness. Then the girl ran on with her candlesticks, and Anna
Maria walked down the corridor, and in both hearts was the same
sunshine. She must hurry, for Klaus would surely be waiting for her, he
wanted to speak with her about the work in the garden.

Next to Klaus's room was a small room, where Anna Maria remembered to
have put away in her portfolio of drawings the roughly sketched plan of
the alterations, and as Klaus was not yet in the sitting-room she
hurried back to get it.

It was almost dark, and she could but indistinctly discern the objects
in the little room, which Klaus jokingly called his library because of a
bookcase which found its place there. So the more distinctly came to her
ears a hearty laugh from her brother, and, with the laugh, the sound of
her own name.

"Anna Maria, do you say? My own aunt, it is perfectly ridiculous!"

"Laugh then, you unbeliever, you will soon be convinced of the truth of
my conjecture. We women, especially we old maids, Klauschen, look at
such things more sharply. Soon some one will come and carry away your
darling, and then we too may sit here and have the dumps, my beloved
boy! What will become of us?"

"_Some one_, aunt? You speak in riddles."

"Well, since you are so dreadfully smitten with blindness, _mon cher_,
it is a Christian duty on my part to open your eyes. Do you not see the
girl's entirely altered manner? Have you never--But to what purpose is
all this? In short, Anna Maria loves Stuermer!"

Another hearty laugh interrupted the old lady. But Anna Maria, with
closed eyes, leaned against the door-post; the ground seemed to give way
beneath her feet.

"Kurt Stuermer? Uncle Stuermer? But, my dear aunt," cried the young man,
"he might almost be her father!"

"Is that a hindrance, Klaus?"

"No! I don't believe it, however. Shall we bet?"

Anna Maria straightened up. She was on the point of going in and saying,
"Why do you argue? I do love him--yes! a thousand times, yes!" But she
stood still; her brother's voice sounded so strangely altered.

"Aunt Rosamond, I _cannot_ believe it!"

"Klaus! Have you not thought for a long time that it must happen some
day?"

"Yes, yes! But--Ah! I have stood in fear of this hour, since the child
is the only one to whom my heart clings; you do not know how much,
perhaps, aunt!"

"Klaus,"--the old lady's voice was melting with tenderness--"my dear old
lad, you are still young: why should there not be a happiness yet in
store for you? I have often told you you ought to marry."

"Marry? You say that to me, aunt? and you know that I have been a
wretched being for years, because----"

"But, Klaus, do you still think of that?" sounded the anxious voice of
the aunt.

"Still?" he repeated ironically. "Am I not daily reminded of it? Do you
think, because I live so peacefully now and can join in a laugh, because
food and wine taste good to me--I see the tower of her family home
whenever I go to the window, I see Anna Maria, I cannot pass that fatal
spot in the garden without the words she then spoke reaechoing in my
soul. I know them by heart, aunt, I have called and whispered them for
weeks in fever; and ever again her enchanting figure stands before my
eyes, and that sweet, beseeching tone rings in my ears, as seductive as
Satan himself: '_Put that obstinate, disagreeable child out of your
house; she interferes with our happiness!_'"

He laughed scornfully. "And because I would not consent to that, and did
not break a promise given to my dying mother, then--she cast me off like
a garment that does not fit comfortably enough--then--then----"

"Klaus! Klaus! for God's sake!" The anxious voice of the old lady
interrupted his speaking, which had risen to vehemence.

But in the little room lay Anna Maria on her knees, her head almost
touching the floor. It had become still in the next room, except for the
sound of rapid steps as the young man paced the floor.

"And now--yes, yes, it had to happen!" said he softly. "I am no egoist,
certainly not, but it will be unspeakably hard for me to give her up.
Oh, yes, I shall see her often. I can ride over any minute; she will
come to us too--certainly. But see, aunt--but I am a fool, really, a
fool! It is the way of the world, and I do not understand why I did not
see long ago that Stuermer is fond of Anna Maria; it is, indeed, so
natural. How good it is that I am prepared; not the slightest shadow
shall fall on Anna Maria's happiness. Your eyes ask that, Aunt Rose? No,
be quiet, be quiet!"

Anna Maria remained motionless on the cold floor, leaning her head
against the door-post. She no longer understood what they were saying
in the next room; she kept hearing only that one dreadful speech: "Put
the child out of the house; she interferes with our happiness!" His
happiness! Klaus's happiness! She passed her cold hand over her
forehead, as if she must convince herself whether or not it was a dream.
No, no; she was awake, she could move her feet as well, she could walk
out of the little room, along the corridor, to her own room.

Marieken was just coming along the passage. Anna Maria stopped, and bade
her say to Fraeulein Rosamond that she was not coming to the table; she
had a headache, and wanted to be alone that evening.

The girl looked in alarm at the pale face of her mistress. "Shall I call
Brockelmann?" she asked anxiously.

Anna Maria made a negative gesture, and laid her hand on the door-knob,
and then turned her head. "Marieken!"

The girl came back.

"It is nothing--only go!" She then hastily turned away, and shut and
bolted her door at once.

"She wishes to be alone with her thoughts," remarked Aunt Rosamond at
the supper table, where she and Klaus sat, right and left of the absent
one's place. Klaus did not reply at once, but looked at that place and
said at length: "So it will always be, soon!" And the old lady nodded
sadly; she knew not what to reply, and a secret anxiety about the future
stole over her, since she had seen that Klaus still bore the old wound
which he had received many years ago. She had supposed it healed long
since.

The next morning Anna Maria went as usual, with her bunch of keys,
through kitchen and cellar. She was pale, and her orders sounded
shorter and less friendly than they had of late. Only to Klaus she gave
a friendly smile, but it was forced, and her eyes had no share in it.
She looked over accounts with him for two hours, and, though he was
distracted and restless, the results were perfectly correct. Aunt
Rosamond alone was alarmed at the girl's appearance, but she did not
venture to ask any questions. Anna Maria was as icily cold as often
heretofore.

The next day, toward evening, Klaus came into Aunt Rosamond's room. The
old lady had just hung up Felix Leonhard's portrait again, after
carefully making fast the broken cord.

"Well, who was right, Aunt Rose?" he asked. He was standing beside her,
and she saw that his face had grown very red, and that his whole being
was stirred.

"Right? In what, Klaus?"

"In your assertion about Anna Maria. She does not love him!"

"Did she say so? Oh, well, it doesn't follow at all that a girl has
spoken the truth, if she says she does _not_ love a certain person, does
not even like him. I have experienced the contrary a hundred times;
those who talk so hide a warm affection under cold words."

"Not this time, Aunt Rose. Anna Maria has definitely refused him!"

The old lady sank, quite overcome, into the nearest chair. "Klaus!
_Est-il possible?_ Has he spoken already, then?"

"Not to her, but to me, aunt. He came about five o'clock this afternoon;
Anna Maria was sitting at the window as he rode into the court, and she
got up at once and went to her room. Stuermer sent in word to me that he
wanted to speak to me alone; and then--truly, Aunt Rose, you do know how
to observe--then he said to me that he loved Anna Maria, that he thought
his affection was reciprocated, and other things that people usually say
on such occasions; he spoke of his age, and said that he would be not
only a husband but a father as well to Anna Maria. I assured him that I
had the deepest respect for him, which is quite true, and after about an
hour went to Anna Maria to get her answer. Her door was open; she was
sitting at her little sewing table by the window, looking out into the
garden; she held her New Testament in her hand, but laid it down as I
came near her. I thought she had been crying, and turned her face around
to me; but her eyes were dry and burning, and her forehead feverishly
hot. As I began to speak she turned her head to the window again and sat
motionless as a statue. I must have asked her certainly three times:
'Anna Maria, what shall I answer him? Will you do it yourself? Shall I
send him to you?' 'No, no!' she cried at length, 'don't send him! I
cannot see him; tell him that I--he must not be angry with me--I do not
love him! Klaus, I cannot go away from here! Let me stay with you!' And
then she sprang up, threw her arms about my neck, and stuck to me like a
bur; but her whole frame trembled, and I thought I could feel her hot
hands through my coat. After much persuasion, and promising that I would
never force her, I got her so far as to sit down quietly at last; but I
had to give the poor fellow his answer--and that was no trifling
matter!"

"For God's sake, Klaus, what did Stuermer say?"

"Not one word, aunt; I spared him all I could, but he grew as white as
the plaster on the wall. At last he asked: 'Can I speak to Anna Maria?'
I said, 'No,' in accordance with her wish; then he took up his hat and
whip, and bade me good-by as heartily as usual, to be sure, but the hand
he gave me trembled. Poor fellow! I do pity him!"

"And Anna Maria?"

"I cannot find her, aunt, either in the sitting-room or in her own
room."

       *       *       *       *       *

At the farther end of the Hegewitz garden stood an old, very old linden;
the spot was somewhat elevated, and a turfy slope stretched down to the
budding privet-hedge which bounded the garden. Under the linden was a
sandstone bench, also old and weather beaten, and from here one could
look away out on the Mark country, far, far out over cornfields and
green meadows, dark pine forests and sandy patches of heath.

There stood Anna Maria, looking toward the meadow on the other side of
the road, with its countless fresh mole-hills, and the wet road which
ran along beside the quiet little river, on whose banks the willows were
already growing yellow. How often of late had she stood here, how often
waited till a brown horse's head emerged from among the willows, and
then turned quickly and hurried into the house, for he must not see that
she was watching for him with all the longing of a warm, first love. And
_to-day_? She did not know herself how she had come hither, and she
looked blankly away into the mist of the spring evening as if she
neither saw the golden rays of the setting sun nor heard the shouting of
the village children in the distance. The air was intoxicatingly soft
and played gently with the black lace veil which had fallen from Anna
Maria's fair hair. She noticed it not. Then she quickly turned her head;
the breathing and step of a horse sounded along by the hedge: "Kurt
Stuermer!" she whispered, and started to go. But she stopped and saw him
come near, saw him ride away in the rosy evening; his eyes were cast
downward. How could he know who was looking after him with eyes almost
transfixed with burning pain? She stood there motionless, and looked
after him; the horse's tread sounded ominously in her ears as he stepped
upon the little bridge which united the Dambitz and Hegewitz fields, and
she still remained motionless after the willows had hidden the solitary
horseman from sight.

Meanwhile the sunset glow had become deep crimson, and faded again; the
wind blew harder, and rocked the budding linden-boughs, and bore along
with it the sound of a maiden's voice; an old song floated past Anna
Maria out into the country:

    "I had better have died
    Than have gained a love.
    Ah, would I were not so sad!"

Then she turned and ran along the damp garden path as if pursued; she
stood still by the fish-pond, so close to it that the water touched her
foot, and looked into the dark mirror. In these Marieken had sought
oblivion when she might not have her Gottlieb! Was it really such
madness, if one--? And Anna Maria stretched out her arms and sprang into
the little decaying boat by the bank.

"Anna Maria! Anna Maria!" called a man's voice just then, through the
still garden.

"Klaus!" she murmured, as if awakening; she tried to answer, but no
sound came from her lips. With a shudder, she climbed out of the
floating boat and turned her steps toward the house.




CHAPTER V.


Spring had come again. Two years had passed since that evening. In Buetze
Manor-house there was a vaulted, out-of-the-way room, which was entered
by a low, small door at the end of a dark passage; the windows looked
out upon the garden. Tall trees forbade entrance to the light, which had
to seek admission through an artistic old lattice-work as well. This had
been the lumber-room from time immemorial. All sorts of things lay,
hung, and stood there, in perfect confusion. Old presses and chests, old
spinning-wheels with yellowed ivory decorations, and dark oil portraits
on which one could hardly detect the trace of a face; a huge bedstead
with heavy gilt knobs--a French general had slept on it in the year
nine, and the late Herr von Hegewitz had banished the bed to the
lumber-room as a desecrated object after that, for it had originally
been made to shelter a prince of the royal family for a night. The wings
of the gilded eagle who sat so proudly at the top were broken off, and
his beak held now only a shred of the crimson curtain, as the last
remnant of former splendor. Fine cobwebs reached from one piece of
furniture to another, and yellowish dust lay on the floor, a sign that
the wood-worm was undisturbed here.

Here Anna Maria stood and looked about her, as if in search of
something. She scarcely knew herself just why she had come in here; she
had happened to go by, and then it had flashed across her mind that it
might be well to give the old lumber-room a breath of fresh spring air,
and she had taken the bunch of keys from her belt and come in. The young
linden leaves outside let one or two inquisitive sunbeams through the
window, and myriads of grains of dust floated up and down in them. It
was so quiet in the room, among the antique furniture. Anna Maria was
just in the mood for it; she sat down in an arm-chair and leaned her
head against the moth-eaten cushion, her eyes half-closed, her hands
folded in her lap.

She felt so peaceful; the old furniture seemed to preach to her of the
perishable nature of man. Where were all the hands that had made it? the
eyes that had delighted in it? She thought how some time her
spinning-wheel, too, would stand here, and how many days and hours must
pass before strange hands would bring it here, as superfluous rubbish.
Strange hands! She felt a sudden fear. Strange hands! For centuries
Buetze had descended in direct line from father to son--and now?

Anna Maria rose quickly and went to the window, as if to frighten away
unpleasant thoughts; the soft, mild spring air blew toward her and
reminded her of the most unhappy hour of her life, and again she turned
and walked quickly through the room. Then her foot struck against
something, and she saw the cradle, lightly rocking in front of her--the
heavy, gayly painted old cradle in which the Hegewitzes had had their
first slumber for more than two hundred years--Klaus too, and she too.
And Anna Maria knelt down and threw her arms about the little rocking
cradle, and kissed the glaring painted roses and cherubs, and a few
bitter tears flowed from under her lashes, the first that she had shed
since that day.

"Why did I, too, have to lie there in the cradle? It might have been so
different, so much better," she thought. "Poor thing, you must decay and
fall to dust here, and at last irreverent hands will take you and throw
you into the fire. Poor Klaus! For my sake!" And almost tenderly she
wiped the dust from the arabesques on the back, and shook up the little
yellow pillows.

Just then came the sound of a quick, manly step in the passage, and
before Anna Maria had time to rise, Klaus stood in the open door.

"Do I find you here?" he asked in astonishment, and at first laughing,
then more serious, he looked at Anna Maria, who rose and came toward
him.

"I wanted to let some fresh air in here, and found our old cradle,
Klaus," she said quietly.

"Yes, Anna Maria--but you have been crying," he rejoined.

"Oh, I was only thinking that it was quite unnecessary that the poor
thing should have been hunted up again for me!" The bitterness of her
heart pressed unconsciously to her lips to-day.

"Anna Maria! What puts such thoughts into your head?" asked Klaus von
Hegewitz, in amazement. And drawing his sister to him, he stroked her
hair lovingly. "What should I do without you?"

She made a slight convulsive movement, and freed herself from his arms.

"But, listen, sister," he continued, "I know whence such feelings come.
You must become low-spirited in this old nest; you have no companions of
your own age, you withdraw more and more from every youthful pleasure,
and, although you think you can do without these things, you will have
to pay for it some day."

Anna Maria shook her head.

"Yes, yes!" he continued, stepping in front of the window, and his tall
figure obstructed the sunlight so that the room grew dark all at once.
"I have seen more of life, I know it. What should you think, Anna Maria,
if you--" He paused and drew a letter from his pocket. "I had better
read the letter to you. I was just looking for you, to talk with you
about it. Professor Mattoni is dead!"

Anna Maria looked over to him sympathetically. Klaus had turned around
and was looking out of the window; the paper in his hand shook slightly.
She knew how deeply the news of this death touched him. Professor
Mattoni had been his tutor, had lived in Buetze for years, and the
pleasantest memories of his boyhood were connected with this man. As a
youth he had had in him a truly fatherly friend and adviser, and had
since visited him every year, in Berlin, where he held a position as
professor in the E---- Institute.

Anna Maria took her brother's hand and pressed it silently. "Yet one
true friend less," she then said; "we shall soon be quite alone, Klaus!"

"He was more than a friend to me, Anna Maria," he replied gently, "he
was a father to me."

She nodded; she knew it well. "And the letter?" she asked.

"A last request, almost illegible; he wishes that I should take charge
of his little daughter, till she--so he writes--till she is independent
enough to take up the battle of life."

"His little daughter?" asked Anna Maria. "Had he still so young a
child?"

"I am sorry to say," said Klaus, "that I know nothing at all of his
family affairs. He married late in life, and probably had every reason
for not presenting his better half: some said he picked her up somewhere
in Hungary; others, that she had been a chorus singer in one of the
inferior theatres in Berlin. I never spoke to him about it, and when I
went to his house I saw in his study no indications that any female
being presided there. I have never noticed anything on my frequent
visits to show that such a person lived with Mattoni, and remember just
once that while we were having a pleasant hour's chat, a child's cry
came from the next room, whereupon he got up and knocked emphatically on
the door. The screaming child was probably carried to a back room, for
it grew still next door, and we talked on. Then I once heard that his
wife was dead; I have never seen any outward tokens of affliction on
him, but the child seems to be alive."

"And now, Klaus?"

The tall man had turned, and was looking absently at the little wooden
cradle.

"And now, Anna Maria? I owe him so much"--he spoke almost
imploringly--"may I impose such a burden upon you?"

"Klaus, what a question! Of course! Please take the necessary steps at
once, and have the child come."

"The child, Anna Maria? Why, I think she must have reached the limits of
childhood now!"

"That doesn't matter, Klaus. Then I will instruct her in housekeeping,
and all sorts of things which she may find useful in her life."

"I thank you sincerely, Anna Maria," he replied; "I hope you will take
pleasure in the girl." He said this with a sigh of relief, which did not
escape Anna Maria's ear.

"You act exactly as if you had been afraid of me, Klaus," she remarked,
with a passing smile; "as if I should not always wish anything that
seemed desirable to you."

"Just because I know that, Anna Maria," he said, grasping her hands
affectionately, "I wish, too, that you might do it gladly, that it might
be no sacrifice to you----"

"I am really and truly glad the child is coming," she said honestly. And
so they stood opposite each other in the forsaken lumber-room; it was
now flooded with sunshine, and the two strong figures stood out from a
golden background. The shadows of the young leaves about the window
played lightly over them, and the call of the thrush echoed from the
woods far away without.

"A sacrifice!" he had said, and yet they had each already made the
greatest sacrifice of which a human heart is capable, and each thought
it unknown to the other. And at their feet rocked the heavy cradle,
moved by Anna Maria's dress, and it rocked on, long after the two had
left the room.




CHAPTER VI.


Thirty years had passed away, and on a stormy autumn evening a young
couple sat before a crackling fire, in Buetze Manor-house--she, a
slender, girlish figure, fair, with pleasant blue eyes; he, tall, or
seeming so from a certain delicacy of form, and also fair; but a pair of
bright brown eyes contrasted strangely with his light hair.

Without, the wind was raging about the old house, as it had done many
years before, and sang of past times; now and then it set up a howl of
furious rage, and then sounded again in low, long-drawn, plaintive
tones, as if singing a long-forgotten love-song.

The young wife in the comfortable easy-chair had been listening to it a
long time; now she said in a clear voice:

"Klaus, this would be just the evening to read aloud the journal."

He started up out of a deep revery. "What journal, my child!"

"That little packet of papers that we found the other day, in rummaging
about in Aunt Rosamond's writing-desk."

He nodded. "Yes, we will do it," he said, "it will be a bit of family
history, perhaps about my parents. I was just thinking how little I know
of them, and it makes me sad. Mother Anna Maria makes her account so
short and scanty, as if she did not like to talk about it, and whenever
she mentions her only brother her eyes grow moist. Come, sit down on the
sofa with me; I will get the papers."

He rose, went to an old-fashioned desk, and took a little packet of
papers from the middle drawer. The young wife had meanwhile taken up a
bit of dainty needlework, and now they sat, side by side, on the sofa,
before the lamp, and he unfolded the sheets.

"What a pretty old handwriting," he said. "See, Marie!"

She nodded. "One can make quite a picture of the writer from
that--small, delicate, and good, as loving as the first words sound."

"Yes," he replied, "she was good and kind. I remember her so distinctly
yet. She used to give me sugarplums and colored pictures, and at
Christmas she used to come as Knecht Ruprecht, and I should certainly
have been frightened if I had not recognized Aunt Rosamond by her voice
and limp."

"Ah, but please read, Klaus," begged the young wife impatiently; and he
began obediently:

"My dear Anna Maria has driven away again with little Klaus----"

"That is you!" interrupted the young wife, laughing.

He nodded; his fine eyes gleamed softly. "But now be still," he said;
"for Aunt Rosamond surely never thought such a disturber of the peace
would ever put her nose in here."

"You bad man! Give me a kiss for that!"

"That, too?" he sighed comically. "There, but be quiet now!" And he
began again:

"My dear Anna Maria has driven away again with little Klaus. It has
become very quiet at Buetze, not a sound in the great house; even
Brockelmann is no longer heard, for since last winter she has taken to
wearing felt slippers. All the rooms down-stairs are shut up, and it is
melancholy. Anna Maria consoles me, to be sure, by saying that there
will be life enough here again when the child has grown large; but, dear
me, by that time I shall have long been lying in the garden yonder! Oh,
I wish I might live to hear merry voices ringing again through the house
at Buetze, and see the rooms down-stairs occupied; but I do not believe
it possible. Well, I must not allow myself to be overpowered by the
loneliness and tediousness about me; I sit at my desk and will try to
narrate the late events here, in regular order. So much has happened
here; the stories rush to my mind all confused, but I should like to
recall the past in proper order.

"If I only knew how to begin! I have already cut three goose-quills to
pieces! I look out of the window, the trees are clad in the first green,
the sky is blue, only a dark line of cloud rising over the barn yonder.
It is warm and sultry, as before an approaching thunder-storm, and now
another spring day rises before my eyes, and now I know.

"It was a ninth of May, just as damp and sultry as to-day. Anna Maria
came in to me. My room was up-stairs here then, on the same story, the
same big flowered furniture stood here, and I was the same infirm,
limping old creature, only fresher and brighter; I laughed more than any
one in the house in those days. I can see Anna Maria before me so
distinctly, as she stood there by the spinet in her every-day gray
dress, with a black taffeta apron over it, and the bunch of keys at her
belt.

"'Aunt Rosamond, will you look at the room which I have been getting
ready for the child?' she asked, and I rose, and limped along beside her
down the hall as far as the large, dark room. I never could bear the
room, and to-day, as I entered it, it oppressed me like a nightmare. To
be sure, dazzling white pillows stood up beneath the green curtains of
the canopy, and a spray of elder on the toilet-table sent its fragrance
through the room; but neither this nor the sultry air which came in at
the window could improve the damp, cold atmosphere, or convey any degree
of comfort to the room.

"'You ought to have had it warmed, Anna Maria,' said I, with a little
shiver, 'and had that unpleasant picture taken away.' And I pointed to
the half-length portrait of a young woman looking boldly and saucily
forth into the world, with a pair of sparkling black eyes, who was
called in the family the 'Mischief-maker.' According to an old,
half-forgotten story, she had come by her nickname from her black eyes
having been the cause of a duel between two Hegewitz brothers, in which
one was killed by his brother's hand. A Hegewitz herself, and lingering
at Buetze on a visit, she had deliberately married another man. How,
when, and where, it happened, the story did not tell; but her portrait
had remained at Buetze, and hung from time immemorial in this room.

"'Ah! let the picture stay: the child does not know whom it represents,'
replied Anna Maria. 'I think it is quite comfortable and pleasant here,
Aunt Rosamond, with the view into the garden.'

"Anna Maria had, literally, no idea of comfort, so her remark did not
surprise me. She lacked that charming feminine faculty of making all the
surroundings pleasing with a few flowers or a bit of graceful drapery.
'The poor thing,' thought I, 'coming from Berlin--to this dreary
solitude!'

"Anna Maria had suddenly turned around to me, and her face, usually so
austere, was glowing with tenderness. 'Aunt Rosamond,' she said, 'do you
know, I am really glad the little Susanna Mattoni is coming!'

"'And I am glad for you, Anna Maria,' I replied, 'for you need a
friend.'

"'I need no friend,' she replied bluntly, 'and how could that young
thing be a companion for me? She is a child, a poor orphaned child, in
need of love, and I will--' She broke off, and a hot blush spread over
her face.

"'You are still young yourself, Anna Maria,' I interposed, 'and I think
she must be seventeen years old.'

"'Years do not make the age, Aunt Rosamond, but the soul, the nature,
the experiences. If God will, she shall find in me rather a mother, for
as a companion I am worth nothing. I should have to conform her to
myself--oh, never!'

"I knew that Anna Maria's whole heart, usually so coldly closed, had
opened to receive a fatherless and motherless creature, to love it, in
her way, with all her might--in her way, indeed, and that was not
understood by every one. How much time have I spent in trying to fathom
that nature, which apparently lay open to every eye, against whose sharp
corners and angles almost every one ran, who had anything to do with
her.

"'Has Klaus gone to meet your guest?' I asked.

"'No, he rode out into the fields. Why should he?' she rejoined. 'Old
Maier drove away to S---- yesterday, and I think every second she must
come. I only hope it will be before the approaching thunder-storm
breaks!'

"The unpleasant stillness before the threatening storm pervaded the
outside world. I went up to Anna Maria at the open window and looked at
the black clouds looming up in the horizon. My eyes roved beyond the
trees in the garden, out into the country; strangely near seemed the
dark forests and Dambitz with its clumsy tower.

"'How near Dambitz looks,' I remarked, 'and it is really so far away.'

"Anna Maria turned quickly. 'Very far,' she said listlessly.

"'Stuermer still stays away,' I began, designedly. I felt compassion for
the man whom an incomprehensible whim of a girl had driven away into the
world, just when he had hoped to find a home and heart; I had once, for
the space of half an hour, imagined that she loved him.

"I received no answer, but about the girl's lips there lay such an
expression of pride and defiant resolution that I resolved never to
mention that name again. She gazed fixedly at the dark clouds, and at
last said, in a wearily oppressed tone: 'Is not that the rumbling of a
carriage?'

"'Perhaps the thunder,' I replied. But before we had closed the window
and I had looked around the room again, Brockelmann stood, with flushed
face, before Anna Maria. 'Gracious Fraeulein, she is--they are here--God
in Heaven!'

"'What is the matter?' asked Anna Maria.

"'There are two of them, Fraeulein, and queer enough she looks--the old
woman, I mean. And a thunder-storm like this is just the time for them
to come to the house in!'

"The storm had indeed broken loose, with thunder and lightning, and
torrents of rain. The old woman made haste to light the candles on the
great mantel, for it was almost dark in the room.

"'They are coming up-stairs already!' she cried, and hurried out,
leaving the door open.

"Anna Maria had not interrupted the old woman by a word; it was not her
way to apprehend quickly a new turn of affairs. So she snuffed the
candles quite composedly and remained standing by the mantel, so as to
keep the door in sight. Her face was as cold and still again as usual,
and did not show the slightest trace of expectation or curiosity, nor
did it alter when in the door-way. But how shall I describe the young
creature who, as suddenly as in a fairy-tale, stepped over the
threshold?

"There never was but one Susanna Mattoni! I do not know whether she
could be called a beauty; perhaps her sparkling brown eyes were too
large for that, too widely opened for the narrow face, the nose too
short, the lips too full, and the complexion too pale; but this I know,
that only by an effort I suppressed an exclamation of surprise, as she
stood there, so small and slight, in her closely-fitting black dress, as
if she had been charmed thither. Her light mantle had slipped from her
shoulders, and a pair of very slender hands had impetuously thrown back
the crape veil from her hat. It was evident that the young girl was in a
state of great excitement; her searching, anxious eyes rested on Anna
Maria's imposing figure, and then dropped to the floor in embarrassment;
she apparently did not know what to do now, and breathed timidly and
faintly.

"'God bless your coming, Susanna Mattoni!' said Anna Maria, in her deep
voice; and she put her arm for a moment around the slender figure. 'May
Buetze please you as a temporary home!' There was an unwonted sympathy in
these words, and as she bent down to the stranger I had to smile at my
former opinion. Anna Maria needed no friend; young as she was, she stood
by Susanna Mattoni with the maternal dignity of a woman of forty. It
was remarkable how she utterly belied her youth in everything she did.

"But at this moment it first became clear what Brockelmann had meant
when she spoke of two--of the old woman. At the threshold of the room
appeared the figure of a small, elderly woman, in a worn black silk
gown, a shawl embroidered in red and yellow over her shoulders, and an
ill-shaped hood of black crape on her head, from which a yellowish,
wrinkled face looked forth; a pair of small dark eyes darted like
lightning about the room; then she ran to Anna Maria, who was regarding
her in amazement, and with a theatrical gesture raised her clasped hands
to her. 'Oh, Mademoiselle, pardon my intrusion, but the child--I could
not part from Susanna!'

"'Stop that!' commanded Anna Maria, decidedly disturbed. 'Who are you?'

"The woman dropped her eyes and was silent.

"'Fraeulein Mattoni, who is the woman?' said Anna Maria, turning to the
young girl, who, it seemed to me, looked timidly at her companion.
Susanna was silent too. There was no sound but that of the rain beating
against the windows, and swaying the branches of the trees. Anna Maria
waited quietly a few minutes.

"'I have been in Professor Mattoni's household since Susanna's birth,'
the old woman now began, 'and----'

"'The child's nurse, then?' Anna Maria said, cutting off her speech.
'Very well, you may stay here twenty-four hours, and see how your
demoiselle is provided for. Brockelmann,' she ordered the old woman,
who, with a chambermaid, had just brought up a trunk that seemed as
light as a feather, 'make up a bed in the gray room for the woman. And
you, Susanna Mattoni, need to be alone after so long a journey. Make
yourself comfortable till supper-time; punctually at seven, I shall
expect you in the dining-room.' She took her basket of keys from the
mantel, and noticing me, motioned to Susanna and introduced her to me as
our future household companion. The little thing shyly kissed my hand,
and as I raised her chin a little to look at her face again, I saw that
tears were shining in the brown eyes. 'Heavens!' I thought as I went
out, 'how will this little princess get on here in that gloomy room, in
Anna Maria's chilling atmosphere?' I quietly patted the pale little
cheek, and followed my niece. Outside in the corridor we met Klaus,
dripping wet, having just dismounted from his horse.

"'And so she is really here, then, the new accession to the family?' he
asked, giving himself a shake in his wet clothes. 'Well, what does she
look like, the little Berliner?'

"I opened the door of my room, and the brother and sister entered.

"'You will see her, Klaus,' replied Anna Maria.

"'Right, little sister, that is true; I will change my clothes first of
all.'

"'Yes, Klaus, but be quick: I would like to settle something with you
before you see the young lady at table.'

"'Young lady? Whew!' rejoined the brother, and a disagreeable expression
lay for a moment on his kind, handsome face. 'Do you wish me to put on a
dress-coat, Anna Maria?' He laughed.

"'Well, you will open your eyes, too, Klauschen,' thought I; and all at
once a thought came to me that fell like the weight of a mountain on my
soul, whether it would not be better if this Susanna Mattoni, together
with her black-eyed witch of a nurse, were a thousand miles away?

"When Klaus and Anna Maria had gone, I stood still in the middle of the
room and said aloud, with a fierce conviction: 'The two children have
made an unpardonably stupid move; what will come of it?' And much came
of it! If the succession of sorrow, tears, and bitter hours that
followed Susanna Mattoni's little feet could have been foreseen on her
arrival, Anna Maria would have given not only the old woman, but Susanna
herself, no longer than twenty-four hours to stay in her house!

"I was still standing on the same spot when the door flew open, and
Susanna's old companion entered. 'Gracious Fraeulein,' she cried
anxiously, 'do come; the child--she is weeping, she is ill, she will
kill herself!'

"The excited creature wrung her hands, and her whole frame trembled. I
limped across to the girl's room, again with the thought, 'What will
come of it?' Susanna was sitting, half undressed, at the toilet-table,
her dark hair falling loosely over a white dressing-sack; her face was
buried in her hands, and she was crying. The old woman rushed up to her:
'Darling, the kind lady is here; she will be good to us, she will let me
stay here, and will speak a good word to the Fraeulein; please now, my
lamb, she surely will.'

"Susanna Mattoni raised her head and dried the tears from her great
eyes; when she saw me she sprang up, and again I felt the magical charm
that surrounded the young creature. 'What is the matter, my child?' I
asked tenderly.

"'You are very kind, Mademoiselle,' she answered; 'it is only the
strangeness and the long journey.' And she shivered with cold.

"'Dress yourself quickly,' I advised her, 'there is a fire in the
dining-room, and the warm supper will do you good.'

"The old woman seized a comb and drew it with evident pride through the
beautiful hair, and waited on the Professor's young daughter as if she
were really a princess. She talked meanwhile of her delicate
constitution and her nerves. I quite forgot going, and at that stood
still in amazement. Merciful Heaven! In old houses in the Mark 'nerves'
were not yet the fashion. What would Anna Maria say, what would----?

"Anna Maria had spoken of having Susanna acquire the art of
housekeeping, so that in the future she might help herself through life
with her own hands. And here! a maid, nerves, the beauty of a _grande
dame_ with the little hands and feet of a child.

"And now the old woman took from the trunk a little black dress,
evidently quite new, and trimmed with bows, flounces, and the Lord knows
what! Over the shining white neck she laid a black gauze fichu, which
she gracefully arranged on the bodice, and beneath the short skirts
peeped two shoes laced up with silk ribbons, such as scarcely ever
before glided over the old floors of Buetze Manor-house. Certainly the
old woman understood her business. Susanna Mattoni was, as she stood
there, the most charming girl I have ever seen, before or since, in my
long life.

"'God help me, what will be the end of it?' I asked myself for the third
time, as the old woman broke off a white spray of elder, and placed it,
correctly and not without coquetry, in the fichu.

"'But, my dear,' I said aloud, 'there is no company here this evening.
We eat to-day _en famille_, buckwheat groats with milk.'

"But I got no answer; the busy lady's maid bent quickly to pull one or
two bows straight, and I glanced from Susanna--the color in whose cheeks
had mounted to a bright red--to the trunk, which looked suspiciously
empty after the taking out of the new dress. The old woman observed me,
and quickly shut the cover. 'The clock is striking seven,' she said; and
in fact, the weak, thin tone of the Buetze church-bell was heard just
seven times, and at once began the noisy sound of the servants'
supper-bell.

"'Come,' said I to her, 'the servants' room is down-stairs.'

"'Thank you,' she replied, with a look of refusal. 'I am not at all
hungry; but I would like to ask for some wood, for the child cannot
sleep in this damp atmosphere.'

"I directed her to Brockelmann, and conducted Susanna Mattoni to the
dining-room.

"Oh, I could paint the scene now! The four candles on the table vied
with the rosy twilight, and in the vaulted window-niche stood Klaus and
Anna Maria. He had put his arm around her, and had been saying some
kind, serious word--they never stood so near each other again! I seem to
see, at this moment, how they turned around toward me--how Klaus, full
of surprise, looked past me at the slender, girlish figure; how Anna
Maria was suddenly transfixed--and I could not blame either of them! I
have scarcely ever seen Susanna Mattoni more charming, more maidenly,
than at that moment, when she stood in embarrassment before the young
friend of her father. I wondered if she had imagined he was different.

"A warm glow overspread her delicate face; Anna Maria blushed, too. I do
not know whether it was fear or anger that caused her to touch Klaus's
arm, as he stepped forward to say some words of welcome to Susanna.

"'Please come to the table!' called Anna Maria. 'Here, Fraeulein Mattoni,
beside Aunt Rosamond.' As we stood at our places she said, in a
strangely faltering voice, the old grace: 'The eyes of all wait upon
Thee, O Lord!' The 'Amen' almost stuck in her throat, and in the look
which she gave the young girl's dainty dress, and which fell with
especial sharpness on the white flowers, I saw what the clock had struck
for Anna Maria. It was almost amusing to me to compare the two girls, so
unlike, and to wonder whether the high-necked, gray woollen dress and
the dainty little silk gown would ever live side by side, without having
to make mutual concessions.

"Klaus talked to Susanna, who sat opposite him. He touched upon the
subject of her deceased father, but gave it up at once when he saw the
great eyes fill with tears, which she bravely tried to swallow with the
strange buckwheat groats. A fresh egg, afterward, seemed to taste better
to her, but with a timorous smile she refused a glass of foaming brown
beer, and I am convinced that she rose unsatisfied from the table.

"The candles were lighted in the sitting-room, and at the master's place
lay a plate of tobacco and a matchbox beside the newspaper. At Anna
Maria's place lay her knitting-work, and at mine spectacles and
Pompadour, just as Brockelmann arranged them every evening, except that
in winter Anna Maria had her spinning-wheel instead of her knitting.
To-night Klaus did not take his pipe from the shelf in the corner;
Susanna Mattoni's delicate form sank into his comfortable easy-chair,
and her small head nestled back in the cushions; but Klaus, like a true
cavalier, with a chivalry that became him admirably, sat on a stool
opposite her.

"The conversation, in which Anna Maria joined but little, turned upon
Berlin. Susanna was well informed about her native city, and now
chattered charmingly and without embarrassment; her eyes shone, her
cheeks grew red, and a roguish dimple displayed itself every instant.
Now she was in the opera-house or theatre, in the Thiergarten or in
Charlottenburg; now she related anecdotes of the royal family. All this
came out in a confused jumble, and Klaus did not grow tired of asking
questions. The newspaper lay disregarded, and his pipe did not receive a
glance.

"Anna Maria sat silent, and knit. At nine o'clock she broke into the
conversation. 'I think you must be tired, Fraeulein Mattoni,' she said;
and one could perceive what an effort she made to speak kindly. 'We
usually retire about ten, but you need an extra hour's sleep to-night.'
And as Brockelmann appeared, in answer to the bell, the little thing,
with a certain astonishment in her eyes, said 'Good-night,' like an
obedient child. She turned around at the door, and asked, with a sweet,
imploring expression on her little face: 'May Isa sleep in my room?'

"'A bed has been made up in another room for your companion,' replied
Anna Maria; 'you are surely not afraid? Brockelmann's room is next
door.'

"Susanna did not reply, but made another exceedingly graceful courtesy
and vanished.

"'Do let the old woman sleep with her,' said Klaus; 'think how forlorn
her first night in a strange house must be!'

"But Anna Maria did not reply; she got her brother's pipe from the
shelf, and, smiling, pushed him into his easy-chair, and took up her
knitting again.

"'There, Klaus, I beg of you, don't be so nonsensical in the future as
to sit on a footstool. That was very uncomfortable.'

"'Sooner dead than impolite!' he replied good-humoredly.

"'Everything in its time!' she rejoined. 'Susanna Mattoni is to be a
member of our household, and there is nothing so tiresome as formal
politeness and constraint. Susanna can sit on that stool just as well as
you.'

"'_Bon_, Anna Maria! But now, what do you really think of her?'

"'Since you ask me plainly, Klaus, I will answer you plainly. I say that
I expected to receive something different into the house.'

"'So did I,' he rejoined laconically, drawing the first whiffs from his
pipe.

"'And that if anything is to be made of the girl, the old woman must go
away to-morrow.'

"'She is right,' thought I to myself, 'if it is only not too late!'

"Klaus took up the newspaper. 'Well, Anna Maria, there may be something
to say about that by and by; but let her stay a week or two, so that she
may see how Fraeulein Mattoni gets on.'

"'Am I to bring up the girl or not?' Anna Maria interrupted, with a
roughness such as she had never before shown toward her brother. 'How is
this spoiled lady of fashion to learn to take care of herself and to use
her hands, if that person remains at her side, to put on her shoes and
stockings for her whenever it is possible, and turn her head with
flowers and frivolities? Twenty-four hours I have said, and not a
minute longer; two such totally different methods as hers and mine
cannot agree.'

"Klaus looked in surprise at the excited face. 'You are right, Anna
Maria,' he said appeasingly. 'I am only afraid that this being will
never develop according to your mind. She seems to me----'

"'Made of different material!' finished Anna Maria ironically. 'I tell
you, that will be no hindrance to me, in educating a girl whose calling
it is to make herself useful in the world; affected dolls, painted
cheeks, and theatrical pomp, I will not endure in my house!'

"She had risen, and all the indignation which the old woman's skill at
the toilet had called forth now glowed on her red cheeks and shone from
her sparkling eyes.

"Klaus laid down the newspaper which he had just taken up. 'I beg you,
Anna Maria,' he said, almost indignantly, 'cannot that be settled
quietly? The girl has only this minute come into the house, and is she
to make discord between us already?'

"Anna Maria sat down again in silence, and took up her knitting. But
after a little while she rose hastily, tied a black lace scarf over her
fair hair, and went out.

"Klaus followed her with his eyes. 'Aunt Rosamond, what is this?' he
asked, sighing.

"'She expected something different, Klaus,' I said; 'it is a
disappointment.'

"'The girl is charming, Aunt Rosamond. I can understand the Professor's
anxiety about her. But how will she get on with Anna Maria's energy?
There are not only hens and such useful creatures in the world, but the
good God has made birds of paradise as well!'

"'Klauschen,' came from the depths of my heart, 'let the bird of
paradise fly away; it is not suited to your nest.'

"'Never, Aunt Rosamond,' he replied quickly. 'I am bound by the last
wish of the man whom I loved best in the whole world!' He was red, and
his eyes shone moistly, and it struck me, at this moment, what a
handsome, stately man he was.

"Brockelmann's entrance put an end to our conversation. She was hunting
for Anna Maria, and looked irritated: 'It is too provoking, master; the
old woman isn't suited with her bed, and means to sit up all night in
her young lady's room. And there is a fire there hot enough to roast an
ox, and that in May! She is doing some cooking, too; the whole room
smells of green tea.' Muttering away, she disappeared.

"Klaus laughed aloud. 'Open rebellion, Aunt Rosamond! Do me a favor, and
look after these two strangers. Perhaps you will be able to point out to
the old woman that--well, that she can't stay here.'

"This really seemed to me the best thing to do, and I went up-stairs.
Through the hall window I caught sight of Anna Maria in the damp,
moonlit garden; she was standing motionless, like a dark shadow, and
looking out toward the dusky country. 'Strange girl,' thought I; 'if an
ugly little creature in a patched dress had come to the house to-day,
she would have taken it to her heart, and kissed it--and now?'

"As I entered Susanna's room without knocking, the old woman hastily
motioned to me to come softly, for her charge was asleep. She was
sitting in a high-backed chair by the bed, and, as I came nearer, rose
and drew aside the curtains for me to look at the girl.

"There lay the young thing in the deep sleep of fatigue, breathing
softly and quietly, a smile on the red lips; the drooping lashes rested
like dark shadows on the child's pale cheeks. Her little night-dress,
trimmed with imitation lace and adorned with a profusion of bows, did
not look badly in the dim light which came from two candles and the
dying embers in the fire-place. The slender hands were folded, and the
dark hair lay loosely over the white pillow. Yes, she was charming, this
maiden in her sweet slumber.

"'Is she not beautiful? Is she not lovely?' said the old woman's proud
smile.

"I nodded. 'Poor little bird of paradise!' I thought, 'how your gay,
shining feathers will be plucked. Well for you if you do not miss them!'
And, bethinking myself of my promise to Klaus, I turned and beckoned to
the old woman. By the fire-place I overturned a little silver kettle and
a cup that were standing on the floor. Aha, the tea-making apparatus! On
the sofa lay the clothes which Susanna had worn to-day, in picturesque
disorder; one little shoe was on the floor, the other I noticed on the
dressing-table, and beside it hats, ribbons, and all sorts of frippery,
in the wildest confusion.

"'Will you not put the things away in the wardrobes intended for them,'
I asked softly, 'so that Susanna can find them without your help?'

"'She will not need to,' the old woman replied confidently, and looked
at me with a friendly grin. 'They surely cannot be so cruel as to
separate us.'

"'Certainly, my dear, you will leave the house to-morrow, and Susanna
Mattoni will remain under our protection, as her father was promised.
There was nothing said about you in this matter.'

"'Then give me a rope at once,' whispered the old woman passionately,
'that I may hang myself on the nearest limb! What am I to do, then?
Where shall I go? I had a foreboding as we drove through the gate that
ill-luck awaited me!'

"'My niece will surely allow you to visit your former charge from time
to time,' I said, to console her.

"'And what is to become of her?' she asked, pointing to the sleeping
girl. 'She is not accustomed to be without me for a moment! No, no, I am
not going; I cannot go. If this young lady has no sympathy, surely the
kind gentleman will have, who used to come so often to the Professor.
Where is he? I will beg him on my knees, I will beg him to let me stay
here.'

"'Listen, my friend,' I said earnestly, and took hold of the flowing
silk sleeves of her dress. 'It will be for your young lady's best good
if you are parted from her. This much I know, that Professor Mattoni has
left the girl quite without means, and it is now high time she learned
to put on her shoes and stockings alone. A poor demoiselle, of citizen's
rank, needs no lady's maid. She must learn to work and to make herself
useful.'

"'Oh, Heaven!' sobbed the little dried-up woman, 'I thought she was to
be a guest in this house, and you will make a servant of her.'

"A harsh answer was at my tongue's end. Had her tenderness for the girl
made this woman perfectly crazy? At any rate, she was not to be reasoned
with. 'Go down-stairs,' said I, in vexation, 'and carry your complaint
to the master. He will know better, at least, how to make you comprehend
what sort of a position Susanna Mattoni is to occupy here.'

"She dried her tears, seized a candle, and flew to the mirror, bustled
about with comb and brush, and spread over her yellow face something
from various little jars. I began to feel a real horror of the old
woman, with her artifices. Now she tied her cap-strings afresh, pulled
from the trunk a lace-edged handkerchief, and holding it theatrically in
her hand, said she was ready to pay her respects to the master.

"'Were you formerly on the stage?' I asked, wondering at her red, full
cheeks.

"'For ten years, Mademoiselle!' she replied; 'I played the gay, her
mother'--she pointed to Susanna--'the tragic lovers. Oh, it was
glorious, that acting together!'

"What she further related I did not understand. 'Merciful Heaven!' I
faltered, as I opened the door softly and showed her out into the hall,
'what has Klaus brought upon us, in his kind-heartedness?'

"I sat still by the girl's bed, and looked at the young face. God only
knew in what slough this fair flower had grown! It was clear that the
old woman must go away, if anything was ever to be made of the girl;
please God it might not be too late!

"The light from the candles scarcely sufficed to light up the nearest
objects. Dense obscurity lay in the corners, but the oil-portrait of the
Mischief-maker was feebly illuminated, and her black eyes seemed to give
me a demoniacal look. A vague fear came over me; involuntarily I folded
my hands in prayer: 'O Lord, Thy ways are wonderful! Lead us gently, let
not the peace go out from us that has dwelt so long beneath this roof,
let no second Mischief-maker have crossed this threshold, preserve the
old, sacred bond between Klaus and Anna Maria. Amen!'

"At this moment the door opened and the old actress came back. She did
not deign to look at me, but knelt down by the bed, laid her head on the
pillow, and began to weep bitterly.

"'Isa! Isa!' murmured Susanna in her sleep. The old woman raised her
head and pressed the dark hair to her lips.

"'I am going, Mademoiselle,' she whispered to me; 'no one has a heart
here in this house. But if a hair of her head is hurt, or a tear falls
from her eyes, I--I--' She gasped out a few words more, and threw
herself down again beside the bed.

"'When shall you leave?' I asked.

"'Early in the morning,' she replied, in a lifeless tone.

"'Then lie down now, and go to sleep,' I said, pointing to the sofa, and
prepared to leave the room.

"'Oh, Mademoiselle!' She sprang up and held me fast. 'Promise me you
will be kind to Susanna, you will speak a kind word to her if she
cries!'

"'Certainly, as far as I can; but she will receive only kindness from
every one here.'

"'Not from the blonde lady,' she said. 'She is a girl without a heart;
perhaps she never had one, perhaps it is dead. She does not know what
youth, beauty, and love are. She never laughs. I notice that people who
cannot laugh are envious of every being that can be happy, that pleases
others by its charm; she will never love Susanna!'

"She spoke pathetically and theatrically, yet a tone of deep pain rang
through her words.

"'Life is so serious,' I returned.

"'But laughing, cheerfulness, beauty are the air she breathes,' began
the strange person again.

"'I promise you to look after the child,' said I, about to go; but in
vain. She held me by the dress, and begged me to hear first, for God's
sake, that it was not tyranny or arbitrary choice that bound her to the
child, but a sacred promise. And whether I would or not, I had to
listen to a story which the old woman delivered as if she were on the
stage, and which, in spite of the whispered tone in which it was given,
was, by means of gestures and rolling of the eyes, a perfect specimen of
high mimic art. I could not now repeat the words as they came from the
lips of the old actress, but only know now that she contrived to
announce that she was just forty years old and had been very beautiful.
The old song came into my head, which a poet puts into the mouth of his
old harpist:

    "'I once was young and fair,
    But my beauty's gone--ah, where?
    On my cheeks were roses red,
    And bright curls upon my head.
    When I was young and fair!
    When I was young and fair!'

"I did not dispute her pretended forty years, and she now unrolled
before my eyes a phase of life so varied and irregular, and yet again so
full of the poetry of a vagabond existence, that Father Goethe would
surely have been glad to have it to insert in 'Wilhelm Meister.' To make
a short story of it, Professor Mattoni had really loved _her_, when, in
consequence of a mood, to her inexplicable, he transferred his affection
to her fellow-actress. 'I was senseless from pain, Mademoiselle,' she
threw in, 'but I governed myself. I became the most indispensable friend
of Mattoni's young wife.'

"She now described this person as a dreamy creature, beautiful as a
picture but quite uneducated; and the Professor, as an imperious man,
who, when he failed to find in his wife the companionship of his soul's
creation, treated her worse than a servant-maid. '_En verite_,
Mademoiselle, she was stupid; the thickest wall would have--' And she
made a gesture, as if to test with _her_ head whether the walls at
Buetze were a match for it. 'Oh, the men, even the wisest and best of
them are blinded when they love, Mademoiselle! He had received his
punishment for his breach of faith toward me.'

"Then followed a description of the Mattoni household, in which Isabella
Pfannenschmidt, as my informant was called, heartily interested herself.
She became housekeeper for Frau Mattoni, who read novels all day long or
played with her cat. The women lived in a little back room, and the
Professor occupied two rooms as formerly. They received from him such
scanty means of support that often they knew not how to satisfy their
hunger. The troupe with which Isabella Pfannenschmidt had an engagement
went away from Berlin, but she could not go with them: 'for,
Mademoiselle, she and the child would have perished in dirt and misery;
she was a person who would go hungry if food were not put right under
her nose, rather than get up from her lazy position on the sofa, and the
Professor took all his meals at a restaurant. He did not want people to
find out that he had a wife and child, anyway. We dared not stir if any
one was with him. Susanna's first frock was made from a cast-off red
velvet dress, cut over, in which her mother once used to play queens.
The father never looked at the charming child till his wife had closed
her dreamy eyes forever. Then, as he went up to her bier, and his child
reached out her little hand after the few scanty flowers I had bought
with my last penny, he was first shaken out of the stupidity of the last
few years. He knelt down with the child and prayed God to forgive him
his wrong-doing! Well, good intentions are cheap, to be sure! He did
give somewhat more for our household expenses, and I was enabled to
dress Susanna so we could show ourselves publicly without attracting
attention; he even let her have lessons, and she learned bravely. He
never inquired for me, and yet I have remained true to him all these
long years; it was as if my care and work were a matter of course. He
had no longer a look for me, the past seemed to be wiped out from his
memory; and yet I have passed my youth in sorrow for his sake, I have
taken care of his wife and child, and now--now she is taken from me!
What have I done to deserve this?'

"I was truly sorry for the little weeping woman, though the facts as to
her age and former beauty might be somewhat different, and though her
statement that he once had loved her might not be strictly true; at any
rate, she had loved him as truly as a poor, weak woman's heart can love.
For his sake she had loved his child, and without a murmur suffered want
and hunger for her sake. And now he repaid her by taking the child away
from her. Poor Isabella Pfannenschmidt, you have lived in vain! The
flame which burns in your heart shines forth triumphantly over all the
theatrical trumpery and baubles clinging to you, poor old Isabella! And
yet it would be a pity for this child to have to breathe in that dusty,
paint-scented atmosphere any longer. No, Isabella, you must go, though
the heart of the once gay actress break over it.

"'Susanna will always be fond of you,' I comforted her, 'and never
forget what you have done for her.'

"'Oh, that she will--that she will! She has her father's nature,' sobbed
the old woman; 'she will forget me, and, what's more, she will be
ashamed of me.'

"'You make a sad exposure of the child's heart, my dear,' said I
reprovingly.

"She started up. 'Oh, no, no! she really is good.' she murmured, 'very
good. And,' she continued, 'I shall not go very far away either, only to
the nearest town. What should I do in Berlin? I should die of longing. I
will hire a room in S---- and sew for money; I can embroider well, with
colored wool and gold thread. And if the longing becomes too great, I
can run up the highway, and if need be up here, to look at the house
where she lives.'

"And now she began, amid streaming tears, to pick out one after another
of the garments lying around, and to lay them in a white cloth, and in
so doing caught up the little shoe on the table, and pressed the narrow
sole to her cheek.

"'Don't forget the little jar of paint,' I whispered, in spite of my
sympathy.

"She shook her head. 'No, no, I shall pack up everything. I will do it
at once, for if she wakes I cannot say good-by. I shall go before
daybreak.'

"I held out my hand to her, for I was sorry for her. 'Go away easy; the
child is well off here--and may the thought console you, that it is for
Susanna's best good.' I went out, and as I turned again, in closing the
door, I saw in the dim light the little gypsy-like creature sitting on
the floor, amid all her rubbish and trumpery, and weeping, her face
buried in her hands."




CHAPTER VII.


"My first inquiry the next morning was for the old woman. She was gone,
I learned, and the Fraeulein was already with the stranger in her room.
'Anna Maria's education is beginning,' I said with a sigh, and ate my
rye porridge less cheerfully than usual. Yesterday lay behind me like a
confused dream, and Susanna's presence in the house oppressed me with
the weight of a mountain. Soon I heard Anna Maria's metallic voice in
the corridor; she was speaking French, so speaking to Susanna at all
events. I caught only a few disconnected words, before she knocked at my
door, and came into the room with the young girl.

"'We wish to say good-morning to you, aunt,' she began pleasantly. I
gave a searching glance at Susanna; a pair of great tears still hung on
her lashes, but the laugh--which was her element--lay hidden in the
dimples of her cheeks and shone from her beautiful eyes, as if only
waiting an opportunity to break forth.

"She wore her black travelling-dress of yesterday, but Anna Maria had
tied a woollen wrap about her shoulders. In spite of that, the sight of
her was like a ray of sunshine.

"'I would like to ask, Aunt Rosamond,' said Anna Maria, 'if you have
some little duty for Susanna, and beg you to let her profit, in the
future, by your skill in needlework. I have been examining her--she can
do nothing!'

"'Certainly, Anna Maria!' I was glad to have, in a certain degree, a
slight claim on the girl. 'Do you like knitting, Susanna?' I asked.

"She laughed and shook her head. 'Oh, no, no! I grow dizzy when I see
knitting always round and round.'

"Anna Maria did not seem to hear this answer. 'Fraeulein von Hegewitz
will teach you netting and plain knitting,' she said; 'with me you shall
learn to understand the mysteries of housekeeping. And now we will have
breakfast, and then begin at once. Klaus has been in the field for a
long time already,' she added; 'the first grass is to be cut to-day.'

"And they went. Susanna tripped along, with hanging head, behind Anna
Maria. 'Is she pursuing the right method with this child?' I wondered.
'With her energy she will destroy all at once, all the results of former
education; but it surely is not possible. God help her to the right
way!'

"Later, as I was taking my walk through the garden, I saw Susanna coming
along by the pond; she did not walk, she actually flew, with
outstretched arms, as if she would press to her heart the green tops of
the old trees, the golden sunshine, and all the birds singing so
jubilantly to-day, and all nature. Her short skirts were flying, the
woollen wrap had disappeared, and her white shoulders emerged like wax
from the deep black of her dress. Indescribably charming she looked,
thus rushing along; she must have escaped somehow from Anna Maria. Close
by my hiding-place she stood still, and looked up at the blue sky; then,
singing lightly, she stooped, picked a narcissus and fastened the white
flowers in her bosom, and then put her hand into her dress pocket, and
drew out something which she put quickly into her mouth, but which did
not interfere with her singing, for now as she went on she trilled the
words:

    'Batti, batti, o bel Masetto
      la tua povera Zerlina.'

"I followed her slowly, and observed lying in the path a little object
wrapped in white paper, which she had evidently lost. 'A bonbon! Well,
that is the height of folly!' said I, taking it up in vexation. 'One
could not expect anything different from such bringing up.' And as I
unwrapped the thing, I found in it a French motto, a more sugary and
frivolous one than which could scarcely have been composed in the time
of Louis XIV., supposing that bonbon mottoes were known at that time.
'If Anna Maria knew of this, with her pure, maidenly mind!' I thought,
shaking my head. 'Oh, Klaus, for my part, I wish your bird of paradise
were in the moon, at any rate not here.' I overtook her at the next turn
of the path, where there was a red thorn in the splendor of full bloom;
it bent its branches almost humbly under this superabundance of rosy
adornment, at which Susanna was looking admiringly.

"'Oh, how charming!' she cried, as she saw me. 'Oh, how wonderfully
beautiful!' And the purest joy shone from her eyes. How did that accord
with the bonbon motto?

"In that moment I resolved not to lose confidence in the girl's
character, and at every opportunity to help lift the young spirit into
higher regions. I have honestly striven to fulfil this promise. I may
testify to it to myself--not so violently, not in so dictatorial and
severe a manner as Anna Maria did I proceed; not like Klaus either. Ah,
me--Klaus! Those first eight weeks in general! Ah, if I only knew how to
describe the time which now followed! There is so little to say, and yet
such an immense change was brought about in our house.

"Whether Susanna Mattoni ever missed her old nurse, I did not know. When
she awoke on that first morning and found Anna Maria by her bed instead
of the little actress, to inform her that the latter had left the house,
great tears had streamed from her eyes. Anna Maria had said: 'Be
reasonable, Susanna, and do not make a request that I cannot grant.' And
Susanna had replied, with an inimitable mingling of childishness and
pride: 'Have no fear, Fraeulein von Hegewitz, I never ask a second time!'

"Anna Maria told me about it later, years afterward. Indeed, there was
no slight amount of pride in that little head.

"Anna Maria began the practical education with the thoroughness peculiar
to her in everything. With her iron constitution, her need of bodily
activity, she had no suspicion that there were people in the world for
whom such activity might be too much. Susanna had to go through kitchen
and cellar, Susanna was initiated into the mysteries of the great
washing, and Susanna drove with her, afternoons, in the burning heat
into the fields, in order to explore the agricultural botany. Anna
Maria's face showed a glimmer of happiness; she now had some one to whom
she was indispensable, so she thought.

"And Klaus? Klaus had never in his life sat so constantly in his room as
now; he went into the garden-parlor seldom or never, and only at
mealtimes came to look into the sitting-room or out on the terrace. And
then his eyes would rest on Susanna with a strange expression, anxiously
and compassionately it seemed to me. He said not a word against Anna
Maria's management.

"'Aunt Rosamond,' the latter said sadly to me one day, 'I fear Susanna's
being here is a burden to Klaus; he is quiet, depressed, and not at all
as he used to be.'

"'Why _that_ cause, Anna Maria?' said I. 'Klaus does seem out of humor,
that is true, but may it not be something else? Farmers have a new cause
for vexation every day, and are never at a loss for one.'

"'Ah, no, Aunt Rosamond!' she replied. 'There has not been the prospect
of such a harvest for years; it is a pleasure to go through the fields.'

"And Susanna, the breath of whose life was laughing? She wandered about
like a dreamer. How often, when she sat opposite me in the sewing-room,
her hands dropped in her lap, and she went to sleep, like an overweary
child. And I let her sleep, for on the pale little face the marks of the
unwonted manner of life were only too perceptible. Once Klaus came into
the room, as she sat there, fallen asleep, like little Princess
Domroeschen, only, instead of the spindle, the netting-needle in her
hand. He came nearer on tip-toe, and looked at her, his arms at his
sides. Then he asked softly:

"'Do you not think she looks wretchedly, aunt?'

"'The altered mode of life, Klaus,' I answered, 'the strange food,
the----'

"'Say the over-exertion, aunt,' he broke in; 'that would be nearer the
truth. Poor little one!'

"'Why do you not say so to Anna Maria, Klaus? I, too, think that too
much is required in this early rising and continually being on the
feet.'

"He grew very red, bit his lips, and shrugged his shoulders in place of
an answer, and left me before I had time to speak further.

"Susanna, moreover, never uttered a word of complaint; but it would
happen that Anna Maria had to seek her, seek for hours without finding
her, and that Klaus very quietly remarked, 'She must have run away!' But
she would appear again suddenly, with bright eyes and red cheeks, to be
sure; she had gone astray in the wood, she said, or gone to sleep in the
garden. Sometimes she would shut herself into her dull room, and open
the door to no knocks. Once, as she pulled her handkerchief quickly out
of her pocket, a paper of bonbons fell to the floor. Anna Maria, who
despised all sweetmeats, confiscated it at once; I can still see the
look of punishment she gave the blushing girl. We were all sitting on
the terrace, just after supper; Klaus had been reading aloud from the
newspaper, and this was usually a moment when Susanna waked from her
dreaming; her shining eyes were fixed on Klaus, and a rosy gleam spread
over the pale face. Klaus held the good old 'Tante Voss,' and read aloud
every little story which alluded to Berlin; that habit was now quietly
introduced, whereas he had formerly read only certain political news,
that he might talk about it with Anna Maria.

"The falling bonbon package broke right into a report from the
opera-house, where Sontag had sung with wild applause. Klaus let the
paper drop, observed Anna Maria's look and the gesture with which she
laid the unlucky package beside her, and saw Susanna's confusion.

"'Show me the package, Anna Maria,' he asked; and unwrapping one of the
bonbons in colored paper, he said, 'Ah! these are miserable things
indeed; they must taste splendidly!' He smiled as he said this, and the
smile put Susanna beside herself.

"'I--I do not eat them at all!' she cried, 'I only have them for the
little children who come to the fence there below; they are pleased with
them, I know, for nothing was more beautiful to me when I was a child
than a bonbon!'

"She said this so touchingly and childishly, in spite of her excitement,
that Klaus begged for her hand as if in atonement.

"'Susanna, you might poison the village children with this bad stuff. I
will get some other bonbons for you that will taste good to you
yourself.'

"Anna Maria rose, apparently indifferent, put the dish of fragrant
strawberries which she had been hulling for preserving on the great
stone table, and went slowly down the steps into the garden. When she
came up again, an hour had passed, and the moon appeared over the gabled
roof and shone brightly into her proud face.

"'Where is Susanna?' she asked. The child had just gone down to the
garden, and Klaus was smoking a pipe in peace of mind. She seated
herself quietly in her place and looked out over the moonlit tree-tops
into the warm summer night. Then she said suddenly:

"'May I say something to you, Klaus?'

"'Certainly, Anna Maria,' he replied.

"'Then do not give Susanna any bonbons; that is, do not contradict me so
directly when I have occasion to reprove her.'

"Klaus sat bolt upright in his wooden chair. 'Anna Maria,' he began, 'I
don't think you can complain of my having found fault with or revoked
any regulation of yours with regard to Fraeulein Mattoni; although'--he
stopped, and knocked the ashes from his pipe against the flagstones.

"'Did I do anything with Susanna which displeased you?' she asked.

"But she got no answer, for just then the subject of discussion flew up
the steps, and sat down again, modestly, in her place. Anna Maria rose,
took a shawl from her shoulders, and wrapped it about the girl who was
breathing very fast. 'You are heated, Susanna, you might take cold.'
Klaus now smoked the faster, and on saying good-night held out both
hands to Anna Maria; but she placed hers in them only lightly.

"Ah, yes, the first omens, slight and scarcely noticeable! Perhaps they
would have escaped my eyes if I had not had, from the very first, a
foreboding of coming evil. I do not know if Susanna received the
promised bonbons. Probably not; and after that episode everything went
on in the usual course, until there came a day full of unforeseen
events, full of developments, which placed us all at once in the most
dreadful entanglements.

"It was an oppressively hot day, just in the middle of the harvesting.
In the court-yard and in the house a veritable deathly stillness
reigned, and not even a leaf on the trees stirred under the scorching
midday sun. I sat in one of the deep window-niches of the great hall
which lies on the garden side of the house and opens out on the terrace.
Here it was endurable, for the heat could not easily penetrate the thick
walls, and the tall elms which shaded the terrace, and the wild-grape
which covered it with its luxurious festoons, made a cool, green, dim
light. Even now the garden-parlor is my favorite retreat during the warm
weather. At that time, however, there was no carved-oak furniture here,
nor was there a gay mosaic pavement on the terrace; the white varnished
chairs and the couches covered with red-flowered chintz answered the
same purpose, as did the worn old sandstone flags with which the terrace
was paved, in whose crevices grass and all sorts of weeds sprung up
picturesquely; and the heavy gray sandstone railing had quite as feudal
a look as the artistic wrought-iron balustrade there now, and, to tell
the truth, pleased me better. Some of us have such an affection to the
old things; but that is pardonable, I think.

"So I was sitting in the garden-parlor, and growing a little dreamy, as
I still like to do, and listening abstractedly to Anna Maria's voice as
she went over her accounts, half aloud, in the sitting-room close by.
Klaus was in the fields again, for the first wheat was to be brought in
to-day, and I was waiting for Susanna to come for a sewing lesson, but
in vain. She must be asleep, I thought, half content to think so, for
the heat fairly paralyzed my will-power. And so a long time passed, till
a heavy step sounded on the stone flags outside, and immediately after
Klaus, dusty and red with heat, came in and threw himself wearily into
the nearest chair.

"'Where is Susanna?' he asked, wiping his hot forehead with his
handkerchief.

"'She is sleeping, probably,' I replied.

"'Are you sure of that, Aunt Rosamond?'

"'No, Klaus, but I think it may be assumed with tolerable certainty. I
know her.'

"'It is strange,' he remarked; 'I could have sworn I saw her vanish in
the Darnbitz pines a little while ago.'

"'For Heaven's sake!' I cried incredulously. 'Impossible! in this heat!
It is half an hour's walk from here!'

"'So I said to myself; but the gait, all the motions, the small,
black-robed figure--indeed, I rode across the field at once, but of
course nothing was to be heard or seen then.'

"'I will wager she is sleeping quietly up-stairs in her canopied bed, or
staring at the "Mischief-maker,"' said I jestingly.

"'And now, aunt,' began Klaus again, 'I have a piece of news which will
please you as it has me; but I do not know if Anna Maria--But then, it
is nearly three years since that painful affair!'

"As he spoke he took a letter from the pocket of his linen coat, and
looking at it said: 'Stuermer is back again, indeed has been for two
weeks; I do not understand----'

"At that instant something fell clattering to the floor, and in the
door-way stood Anna Maria, white as a corpse. In questioning alarm her
eyes were fixed on Klaus's lips. I had never seen the strong-willed girl
thus. Klaus sprang up and went toward her; I heard her say only the one
word 'Stuermer.'

"'He is here, Anna Maria,' replied her brother; 'does that startle you
so?'

"She shook her head, but her looks belied her.

"'I have just received this note,' continued Klaus, and he read as
follows:

     "'MY DEAR OLD FRIEND:

     "'I landed here again two weeks ago, for the longing for home
     finally overcame me; and when one has wandered about for three
     years, it is time, for various reasons, to return to the
     ancestral home. I come from--but I will tell you all that when
     I see you. I have already been twice before your door, to say
     good-day, but--I am meanwhile of the opinion that the past
     should not interfere with our old friendly relations. I
     certainly came off conqueror! It will not be hard for Anna
     Maria to receive an old friend, which I have never ceased to
     be, and which I shall always endeavor to remain. May I come,
     then? To-morrow morning, after church, I had intended to make a
     call, if you permit it. My compliments to the ladies.

     "'Ever yours,

     "'EDWIN STUeRMER.'

"A deep pink flush had mounted to Anna Maria's cheeks as he read, and at
the words 'I certainly came off conqueror! It will not be hard for Anna
Maria to receive an old friend,' there was a quiver of pain on her
delicate lips. When Klaus finished, she had quite recovered her
self-possession. 'I shall be glad to see Edwin Stuermer again,' she said
clearly; 'ask him to eat a plate of soup with us.'

"'That is lovely of you, Anna Maria!' cried Klaus, rejoiced. 'The poor
fellow has gotten over it, it is to be hoped; meeting again for the
first time is naturally somewhat painful, but you have done nothing so
bad. How could you help it that he loves you, and you not him? Splendid
old fellow, he----'

"Anna Maria's eyes wandered with a strange expression over the green
trees outside; she kept her lips tightly closed, as if making an effort
to repress a cry, and was still standing thus when Klaus sat down at the
writing table near by, to answer Stuermer's note.

"'Where is Susanna?' she asked at last.

"'She must be asleep,' I replied.

"She turned and left the room.

"'Klaus,' I said, going up to him, 'it seems to me a dangerous
experiment for Stuermer to return here.'

"'Why, aunt?' he asked; 'Anna Maria certainly does not love him; and he?
Bah! If he were not sure of his heart, he would not come; he simply
declares himself cured!'

"'Are you so sure that Anna Maria does not love him?'

"He looked at me, as if to read in my face whether or no I had lost my
senses. 'I don't understand that, aunt,' he replied, shaking his head.
'If she loves him she would have married him; there was nothing in the
world to hinder. For Heaven's sake, aunt, don't see any ghosts. I am so
inexpressibly glad to have a man again in the neighborhood with whom one
can talk about something besides the harvest and the weather.'

"Yes, yes! He was right, of course. I did not know myself at that moment
how the thought had really come to me.

"And Klaus rode into the field again, and I sat waiting for Susanna;
round about, the deepest silence, only a couple of flies buzzing about
on the window-panes; an hour slipped away, and yet another. Why, why,
the hands of the clock were pointing all at once at half-past six; I had
had a nap, as ailing old maids have a right to do occasionally. The
sinking sun was now peeping, deep golden, through the trees; one such
impertinent ray had waked me. Had Susanna been here? I rose and went to
my room, and then across to Susanna's: it was impossible that she should
still be sleeping.

"No, the room was empty. The sun flooded it for a moment with a crimson
light, and made it seem almost cosey; or was it the bunches of flowers
all about on the tables and stands? Even the 'Mischief-maker' had a
garland of corn-flowers hung over the frame, and a sunbeam falling
obliquely on her full lips lit them up with a crimson light. No trace of
Susanna; her black gauze fichu lay on the floor in the middle of the
room; on the sofa, half-hidden in the cushions, was a note. I drew it
out--old maids are allowed to be curious--and my eyes fell on a bold
handwriting which, to my surprise, read as follows:

"'Three o'clock this afternoon, in the Dambitz pines!'

"How every possibility whirled through my head then! Klaus had seen
aright! But who, for Heaven's sake, had written this? With whom had
Susanna a meeting there! I thought and thought, and all manner of
strange ideas arose in my mind, and Susanna did not come; she had never
stayed away so long before. The supper-bell rang, and we three sat alone
again at the table, for the first time in a long while, and worried
about the girl. All the servants were questioned, and two lads sent
along the Dambitz road.

"I did not know if I ought to speak of the letter. I should have liked
to speak first to Susanna alone; so I decided to wait and not cause any
further disturbance. Anna Maria was noticeably indifferent, and thought
Susanna would certainly come soon, she had probably gone to sleep in the
wood. But she must have felt an inward anxiety, for her hands trembled
and her face was flushed with excitement.

"Klaus rose without having tasted anything. After a little we heard
again the sound of horse's hoofs on the pavement of the court; he was
riding out then to search for the missing one. Anna Maria mechanically
gave her orders for next day, and I walked alone through the dusky paths
in the garden. It was an unusually warm August evening; the moon was
rising in the east, the steel-blue sky above was cloudless, and from the
wood there came a light, refreshing breath of air. From the court came
the sound of men and maids singing, as they made merry after the hot
day's work. Ah! how many, many such evenings had I known here, and this
one brought back to me a precious memory of my youth, with all its
pleasure and all its suffering. Every tree, every bush I had known from
my earliest youth. Everything which life had brought to me was
associated with this little spot of ground. That feeling is known only
to one who can say to himself, 'Here on this spot you were born, here
will you live, and here will you die,' and it is a sweet feeling! So I
sat down in perfect content on a bench at the end of the garden, and in
my dim retreat rejoiced in all the beauty about me, yet at the same time
worrying about Susanna. Then I suddenly heard some one talking not far
from me:

"'And then don't look so sorrowful to-morrow, do you hear, Susy? And in
any case wear the white dress to church to-morrow; I have my reasons for
wishing it. And to-morrow afternoon I will come; it has been long
enough, I can certainly come to visit you for once. And don't let out
anything, darling. What will you answer if they ask you where you have
been so long?'

"'Nothing at all!' answered Susanna's voice defiantly. 'I do not like to
tell a lie, I shall not do it; but I shall not come to Dambitz again, it
is too far away for me.'

"'Very fine!' was the reply; and I now recognized the voice of the old
actress. 'I have walked about with you in my arms all night long many a
time, no step was too much for me; and you will not go an hour's
distance away for my sake? I think of nothing but you and your future; I
devise plans and take pains to make your lot happy; I take up my abode
in a wretched peasant's house with a shingle roof, and everlasting smell
of the stable only to be near you; I sew my eyes and fingers sore--and
you--?' And she broke out in violent sobbing, which, however, it seemed
to me, made no impression upon Susanna, for she remained still as a
mouse.

"'Go, Susy, be good,' the old woman began again. 'I have just given you
the pretty little dress to-day; look at it by and by and see how
carefully it is embroidered.' And now her voice sank to a whisper, and
immediately after Susanna's little figure ran quickly from the thicket
and passed close by me; she carried a white parcel in her hand, and her
round hat on her arm. I could distinctly see her flashing eyes and red
cheeks. I rose quickly, I _must_ speak before any one else saw her.
'Susanna!' I tried to call, but the name remained on my lips; for in the
path along which she flew stood, as if charmed thither, the tall figure
of a man, and Klaus's deep voice sounded in my ears:

"'Susanna! Thank God!'

"Had I heard aright? They were only three simple words, words which
perhaps every one would say to a person who had been missed and
anxiously sought. But here a perfect torrent of passion and anxiety
gushed forth, as hot and stifling as the summer night in which the words
were spoken.

"I sat down again and leaned my swimming head on my hand. 'My God,
Klaus, Klaus!' I stammered. 'What is to come of this? This child! Their
circumstances compare so unfavorably, he cannot possibly want to marry
her; what, then, draws him to her? What conflicts must arise if he
really thinks of it! God preserve him from such a passion! It is surely
impossible; it cannot, must not be! Oh, Susanna, that you had never come
to this house!'

"And round about me whispered the night-wind in the trees; the full moon
had risen golden, and bathed field and wood with a bluish light. And
Susanna is so young, and Susanna is so fair! Was it, then, strange if
Klaus loved her? What cared love and passion for all the considerations
which I had just brought up. And their--Oh, God! what would Anna Maria
say?

"And I rose, quite depressed, to go to my room and collect my thoughts.
Klaus must have taken Susanna into the house long ago. Now Anna Maria
would ask where she had been. And she would not answer, as often before,
and Anna Maria would speak harsh words and Klaus walk restlessly about
the room! Nothing of all this. As I went slowly along the path I caught
sight of a dark figure on the stone bench under the linden. 'Anna
Maria?' I asked myself. 'Is she waiting here for Susanna?' She looked
fixedly out toward the dark country, and the moon made her face look
whiter than ever.

"'Anna Maria!' I called, 'Susanna has come back!' She sprang up
suddenly, hastily drawing her lace veil over her forehead; but I saw, as
I came nearer, that tears were shining in her eyes.

"'Have you been anxious?' I asked, and put my arm in hers, to support
myself, as we walked on.

"'Anxious?' she repeated questioningly. 'Yes--no,' she replied absently.
'Ah, you said Susanna has come? I knew perfectly well that she would,
aunt, she is so fond of roving about; that comes from the vagabond blood
of her mother, no doubt.'

"'Anna Maria!' I exclaimed, startled.

"'Certainly, Aunt Rose,' she repeated, 'it is in her, it ferments in her
little head and shines from her eyes. So often I have noticed when she
is standing by me or sitting opposite me, busied with some work, how her
looks wander away, in eager impatience; how only the consciousness 'I
must obey' compels her to stay still by me. Then she naturally makes use
of every opportunity to rush out, to lie down under some tree and forget
time and the present. Happy being, thus constituted, through whose veins
runs no slow, pedantic, duty-bound blood!'

"We were standing just at the bottom of the terrace, and I involuntarily
seized hold of the railing to steady myself. Was it Anna Maria who spoke
such words! Was not the whole world turned upside down then? And I saw
in the moonlight that her lips quivered and tears shone in her eyes. Had
Anna Maria something to regret in her life? And, like a flash of
lightning, Edwin Stuermer's handsome face came before my mind's eye.

"'Anna Maria,' I whispered, 'what did you say? Who--?' But I got no
further, for the sound of a woman's voice fell on our ears; so full, so
sweet and ringing the tones floated out on the summer night, so
strangely were time and tune suited to the words, that we lingered there
breathless. Anna Maria looked up toward the open window in the upper
story. 'Susanna!' she said softly.

    'Home have I come, my heart burns with pain.
    Ah, that I only could wander again!'

sounded down below.

"But what was the matter with Anna Maria? She fairly flew back into the
garden. I stood still and waited; the singing above had ceased. 'Anna
Maria!' I called. No answer. What an evening this was, to be sure! Anna
Maria, who took the most serious view of the world, who hated nothing
more than sentimentality and moonlight reveries, was running about in
the garden, moved to tears by a little song! They were all
incomprehensible to me to-day--Klaus, Susanna, and Anna Maria, but
especially the latter. How could I talk to her about Susanna to-day? I
had to keep my discovery to myself; the best thing I could do would be
to go up myself to Susanna and ask her, for we should hardly assemble
about the round table in the sitting-room this evening, and Anna Maria
would hardly be in the mood to read aloud the evening prayers as usual.
And Klaus? No, I would not see him at all; better to-morrow by daylight,
when he would be his old self again, when his voice would have lost its
sultry summer-night cadence, it was to be hoped. No more to-day, I had
had enough. I should not be able to sleep, as it was.

"And so I went, like a ghost, up the moonlit steps, and stole along the
corridor to Susanna's door, and knocked softly. No answer. I lifted the
latch and went in. The room was lighted only by the moon, and the heavy
odor of flowers came toward me; a pale ray shone just over the white
pillows of the bed and fell on Susanna's face. She was fast asleep; her
neck and arms glistened like marble. Should I wake her? She would surely
stifle in this air. I stole past her, opened a window, and set the
bunches of flowers out on the balcony. The room looked topsy-turvy, but
on the sofa was spread out with evident care the toilet for
to-morrow--the white dress, little shoes and stockings, even hat and
hymn-book for church.

"I closed the window again softly and stole out of the girl's room. Let
her sleep; in this enchanted moonlight it would be impossible to say
anything reasonable, I thought. Indeed, I reproached myself afterward
for not having waked her from her dreams, in order to have brought all
my old maid's prose to bear against all this flower-scented poetry. But
what would it have availed? For God Almighty holds in his hands the
threads of human destiny. It had to be thus."




CHAPTER VIII.


"The next morning broke as prosaic and calm as I could desire. The sun
shone with obtrusive clearness into the most remote corner, and
mercilessly set out everything in a dazzling light. From below,
out-of-doors, I heard the sound of Anna Maria's voice, and caught
something about 'string-beans for the servants' kitchen.' Klaus whistled
out of the window, and immediately after I heard a dialogue concerning
Waldemann (the _Teckel_), who was just limping across the court, having
jammed his foot in the stable-door, according to the coachman's account.
Klaus's voice, thank God, had not a suspicion of that weak intonation of
last evening. Relieved, and smiling at my fears of yesterday, I got
ready for church. If we can only get well over the first meeting with
Stuermer, it may be quite a pleasant Sunday, I reasoned; I was wishing
some visitor would come, that we might not be so much by ourselves.

"When our church-bell began to ring we three of the family were standing
down-stairs in the sitting-room waiting for Susanna. Anna Maria looked
weary and unnerved, and an old sort of expression lay about her mouth;
she moved quickly and was plainly out of humor at Susanna's want of
punctuality. The festal earnestness that usually pervaded her whole
being in going to church was lacking to-day. 'Rieke!' she called to the
housemaid, 'go to Fraeulein Mattoni and ask if she will be ready soon;
we are waiting for her.' The girl came back with the answer that the
young lady had not quite finished her toilet, and begged the others to
go on.

"'I will wait for her,' said Klaus quickly, right out of his kind,
chivalrous heart, but it brought to my mind the voice of last evening.

"'You will let your old aunt limp to church alone, for the first time?'
I asked jokingly.

"'Ah, _pardon_!' he replied at once. 'Old my aunt certainly is not yet;
on that ground I might leave you; but I--may I beg the honor?' he asked,
offering me his arm.

"Anna Maria walked ahead; there was something majestic in her walk, and
as she stepped from the garden through the gate of the church-yard, and,
walking between the rows of graves, recognized the peasants with an
inclination of her fair head, kindly stroking the flaxen heads of the
children, and here and there saying a friendly word to an old man or
woman, all eyes followed her with reverence and admiration, while Klaus
received more trusting looks, and even cheers. When in our pew in the
church, she bent her head low and prayed long, and then cast a shy look
toward the opposite gallery, the place of the Dambitz gentry; Dambitz
had always been in the parish of Buetze, and many a happy time have the
Stuermers sat on that side and the Hegewitzes on this, and listened to
the simple discourse of the clergyman and bowed the head in devout
humility. Those were the good old times, when the nobility led the way
before the people, with the motto: 'Fear God and honor the king!'

"All at once a thrill went through Anna Maria's body, but her face
looked coldly over to the Stuermer gallery; she bent her head slightly
and returned a greeting. There he was standing bodily, my old favorite,
and I almost nodded my head off at him and made secret signs with my
handkerchief. His dark eyes sent a happy greeting across to me--Edwin
Stuermer was really there.

"The clear voice with which Anna Maria joined in the singing drew my
looks to her again. She sang quietly with the congregation, but a
crimson flush of deep agitation lay on her face; it was evidently
excessively painful to her to see him again.

"What the sermon was about on that day I cannot tell, for before the
clergyman ascended the pulpit something occurred which nearly put an end
to the devotions of all the small congregation and obliged me to leave
the church.

"I had fixed my eyes steadily on Stuermer, as if I could not look my fill
at the man's handsome curly head; and the good God surely forgave me,
for I was as fond of Edwin as if he were my own child. All at once,
during the singing, I saw him start and look intently across to me; and,
following the direction of his gaze, I observed--Susanna. She had on a
white muslin dress, her neck and arms lightly covered by the misty
material; she held her hat in her hand, her black hair clustered in rich
curls about her small head; a white rose was placed carelessly in her
hair, and a bunch of the same flowers rose and fell on her bosom, and as
white as they was her sweet face as she raised it again after a short
prayer.

"Most beautiful was this young creature, but, may God forgive me! I was
bitterly angry with her for being so and for coming to church dressed up
as if for a ball. 'Incorrigible comedian blood,' I scolded to myself. I
thanked God that Klaus could not see her from his seat, and gave Stuermer
an unfriendly look because he kept looking over at our pew. All at once,
as the clergyman was singing the liturgy, Susanna put her hand to her
forehead, as if to grasp something there, and then sank back silently,
with closed eyes, into her seat.

"I cannot tell now the exact order in which all this happened; I only
remember that a chair was overturned with a loud noise, that the
clergyman was silent for an instant, and that there was a movement among
the congregation; at the same time Klaus left our pew, carrying out the
white figure in his arms, like a feather. I rose at once to follow him.
Anna Maria's head was bent low over her hymn-book; was she going to take
no notice of the affair? But now she slowly rose, and went behind me
down the narrow, creaking flight of steps which led up outside the
church to our pew; it was provided with a wooden roof as a protection
against wind and storms, and the ivy which grew over the whole church
adorned it like a bridal arch with green festoons.

"Klaus was just disappearing into one of the nearest cottages, whose
shining window-panes looked out like clear eyes beneath the gray
shingle-roof, not at all sad at the constant view of the little
church-yard. Marieken Maertens and her husband lived here; she had been
in Anna Maria's service, a quick, industrious girl, but once was sent
away in the utmost haste because she--but that has nothing to do with
the case. Anna Maria had her brought back again at that time, and she
was married from the manor-house, and since then Anna Maria and I had
each held a curly brown head over the font. When there was anything
going on at our house--that is, when there was extra work--Marieken came
and helped.

"She was at the threshold coming to meet us already, wiping her hands on
her clean apron, and pushing back her eldest child. 'She is lying on the
sofa inside,' she whispered. 'Oh, the master looks pale as death from
fright!' Anna Maria stepped by me into the little room; she made a sign
for me to stay outside, so I sat down on the wooden stool that Marieken
placed in the entry for me, and listened intently for every sound from
within.

"For a little while all was still. Marieken ran in with fresh water, and
then I heard Anna Maria say: 'How are you now, Susanna?'

"'Go back to church quite easy,' came the reply; 'it was a momentary
weakness. I am very sorry to have given you such anxiety and trouble.'
And the next moment the girl was standing on the threshold, a crimson
blush overspreading her whole face, and without noticing me at all, she
flew to the outside door and across the church-yard; her fluttering
white dress appeared again for an instant in the frame of the gateway
leading to our garden; then she had vanished like an apparition.

"Shaking my head, I rose to go into the little room and hear what was to
be done now. But I sat down again, almost stunned at the sound of
Klaus's voice, which came out to me so crushingly cold and clear:

"'I should like to ask you, Anna Maria, to occupy the girl hereafter in
some way better suited to her; this swoon was the natural effect of
constant over-exertion.'

"I could not picture Anna Maria to myself at this moment, for Klaus had
never used such a tone to her before. My old heart began to beat
violently from anxiety. 'It is here! It is here!' I said to myself.
'Yes, it had to come!'

"'I think this swoon is rather a consequence of Susanna's running about
too much in the fearful heat yesterday,' she replied coldly. 'However,
as you wish; I will leave it entirely to you to decide what occupation
is most fitting for Susanna Mattoni.'

"'Great heavens! Anna Maria, do you not understand?' Klaus rejoined,
almost imploringly. 'Look at the girl: she is delicate and accustomed to
the easy life of a large city, never to a regular life. I beg you not to
take it amiss, it is my opinion and----'

"'I am sorry that I have made such a mistake,' Anna Maria interrupted,
icily. 'I have tried to do my best for this unfortunate child, who has
grown up in most wretched circumstances. I wanted to make a capable,
housewifely maiden of her, but I see myself that such miserable comedian
blood is not to be improved, and I ask you now only for one thing----'

"She broke off. What would come now? I looked about me in horror to see
if any one were listening. But Marieken was clattering about with her
pots and pans in the kitchen, and the children were playing before the
outside door.

"'That you will not require me to endure this frivolous creature, this
frippery and finery, this trifling, flighty being. I have an unspeakable
aversion to her,' she concluded.

"'So that is your confession of faith, Anna Maria?' asked Klaus, and his
voice sounded angry. 'I tell you Susanna Mattoni remains here in the
family. I will have it, for a sacred promise binds me, and I hope that
you will never let her feel what you think of her. Her light-mindedness,
her unsteadiness, and all the faults which you have just cited, cannot
be laid to her charge, for from her youth up she has never learned to
recognize them as faults. Of frivolity, moreover, I have no evidences,
for a couple of bonbons do not seem to me sufficient proof.'

"'I cannot act contrary to my convictions,' returned Anna Maria, 'and if
I am no longer to educate Susanna as I think well for her, you had
better find another place for her.'

"I had sprung up and laid hold of the door-handle; for Heaven's sake!
there would be a quarrel. But the storm had already drawn near.

"'Susanna is to remain, I tell you!' thundered Klaus. 'Do you quite
forget who is master of the house? It appears to me I have let you go on
for years in an immeasurable error, in letting you govern uncontrolled,
and assenting to all your arrangements. It is time for you to remember
whose place it is to decide matters at Buetze.'

"Merciful Heaven! My knees trembled; how was this to end? And now there
was no sound there within; only the low singing of the young wife was
heard from the kitchen, where she was rocking her youngest child to
sleep; and I stole softly away from the door and sat down on the wooden
bench before the house. Over the quiet, green graves in the church-yard
lay a Sunday calm, only a light breath of wind rustled in the tall
trees. Over in the little church the sermon was just finished, the
sermon for the fifth Sunday after Trinity. The sound of the organ and
singing of the congregation floated across to me, and my lips repeated
the words:

    "'Ah! stay with thy clearness.
      Precious light, with us stay;
    Let thy truth shine upon us,
      That we go not astray.'

"Ah, yes, clearness, clearness and truth and peace; help us in all time
of need! I knew Klaus, I knew Anna Maria. An almost exaggerated sense of
duty, an iron will when she thought she was doing the right thing,
inflexibility--that was the Hegewitz character; good, solid qualities
when they got on peaceably together, but thus? And there was Stuermer
coming out of the church door; he had not waited till the hymn was
finished, and was now hastening up to me.

"'Fraeulein Rosamond, you still here?' he asked. 'Who----'

"But I did not give him time to finish. 'Come, Edwin, give me your arm,
I have been waiting for some one to escort me back.' And actually
dragging away the astonished man, I succeeded in getting him into the
park without betraying the presence of Klaus and Anna Maria in the
little room.

"'And now, a thousand times welcome, dear Edwin,' said I, breathing
freely again, as we walked under the shady trees. 'How have you been?
How delightful it is to have you here again, and how well and strong you
are looking!'

"He bent to kiss my hand. 'Yes, thank God that I am among old friends
again!' he replied heartily. 'How have things gone here? But why do I
ask? Well, of course; at least, I saw you all unaltered in church. But I
would like to ask, at the risk of appearing curious, who was the young
lady who--oh!' He stopped, and pointed toward the thick, dark shrubbery
at one side, holding my arm so firmly in his that I was obliged to stand
still.

"There sat Susanna in the deepest shade of the thicket. She was leaning
her elbows on the table, and her oval face rested on her clasped hands;
motionless, like a lovely statue, she was looking down before her.

"A golden sunbeam flitted back and forth over the white figure; an
expression full of pain and woe lay on the lovely face, which I had
never before seen so sad and tearful.

"'The poor child!' I sighed involuntarily. And as Stuermer almost forced
me into a side-path, I briefly satisfied his curiosity. 'She is the
daughter of Professor Mattoni; you remember Klaus's old tutor?'

"My head was in a whirl, for I knew not what more might happen to-day.

"'And is she to live here always?' inquired Edwin Stuermer.

"'Yes--no!' I returned hesitatingly; I did not know what to answer. I
sought to reach the terrace and garden-parlor as quickly as possible,
and to my inexpressible relief saw Klaus, as if transported there by
magic, coming to the door to meet his guest; an uninitiated person would
scarcely have seen the slight cloud on his brow.

"I did not linger with them, but went to seek Anna Maria, and found her
in the sitting-room, pale but calm. I was glad to avoid the greeting
between her and Stuermer, and caught only his look as he bent low over
her hands.

"Anna Maria was a perfect enigma to me; I understood the outbreak of
passion of last evening as little as this decided opposition to-day. Yet
the latter was less inexplicable, for she too, must have seen the sparks
already glowing in Klaus's heart. But she had taken the wrong course.
Any man of chivalry, if told that he must turn a weak, helpless woman
out of the house where she has found a shelter, will refuse to do it;
particularly if she be as young, as strikingly beautiful as Susanna,
and--if he is already in love with her. To me it was an incontestable
fact: Klaus loved the girl! Perhaps he did not know yet himself how
much; but that he did love her I had seen and--feared.

"I came to the table in a thoroughly unpleasant frame of mind. 'To-day
is the beginning of the end: what will the end be?' I said to myself,
sighing. That was a strange dinner; Susanna had excused herself, Klaus
was chary of words, and Anna Maria forced herself to be talkative and
affable in a way quite contrary to her nature; a little red spot burned
on her chin, the sign of violent agitation.

"Brockelmann announced that the old actress had suddenly arrived; to be
sure, I had quite forgotten about her. Anna Maria made no answer; Klaus
looked sharply at her, and then gave orders for the old woman to be
given some dinner. Stuermer talked a long time about his travels, and
Pastor Gruene came to coffee. The gentlemen were soon involved in a
scientific conversation about the excavations at Pompeii, at which
Stuermer had been present several times, and Anna Maria walked slowly up
and down on the terrace, now and then casting a look at the gentlemen,
through the open door of the garden-parlor.

"I sat under the shady roof of the wild-grape, and knitted, and followed
her with my eyes. Anna Maria had on a light-blue linen dress, and a thin
white cape over her rosy shoulders; her heavy plaits shimmered like
gold, and her complexion was fresh as a flower. Anna Maria had made her
toilet with especial care to-day; she was the picture of a typical North
German woman, tall, fair, slender, and clear-sighted, serene, and calm.

"All at once she stopped in front of me. 'Aunt Rosamond, do you think
that Susanna Mattoni has been overworked in any way? I mean, can her
temporary weakness be the result of that?'

"'Yes, Anna Maria,' I replied, 'I am convinced of it, for she had not
been accustomed to doing anything. She has hitherto sat in a cage like a
bird; when such a creature tries to fly all at once, it is soon made
lame by the motion.'

"She made no reply, and continued her walking. The conversation grew
louder indoors; the gentlemen were now sitting over their Rhine wine.
The cool breeze of approaching evening began to blow, and the sun was
hidden behind a bank of clouds.

"'Ah! Stuermer, do stay till evening,' I heard Klaus say. 'It will never
do not to finish the day together, after beginning it so; do not pervert
our good old custom.'

"Anna Maria stood still and listened. But instead of an answer we heard
the chairs pushed back, and then Klaus's voice again:

"'Ah! Susanna, have you quite recovered? Allow me to present Baron
Stuermer.'

"Anna Maria turned and looked out toward the garden.

"Pastor Gruene inquired after the health of the young girl, and soon they
all came out on the terrace. Susanna went up to Anna Maria at once, and
held out her hand, saying: 'Forgive me for having frightened you this
morning. I do not know how it happened; everything grew dark before my
eyes, and----'

"'Oh! certainly,' interrupted Anna Maria, touching the girl's hand but
lightly; 'I was not at all frightened; a swoon is nothing so unusual.'

"Susanna blushed up to her black curls, and sat down quietly by my side.

"'Has Isa gone?' I asked her.

"She nodded. 'She went half an hour ago.'

"'Just where does she live?' I inquired.

"'In Dambitz,' was the reply.

"I let my work drop from astonishment. 'In Dambitz? How did she happen
to go to Dambitz?'

"'S---- was too far away, Fraeulein Rosamond,' stammered Susanna shyly,
'and so she has hired a little room there at the blacksmith's. But she
says she does not notice the noise of the forge at all; her windows look
out on the castle garden, and that is wonderful, she says. She may live
there, may she not?' she added, beseechingly; 'it is certainly far
enough from here.'

"'Of course she can live where she pleases, Susanna,' said I; 'we have
no right to lay down commands about that.'

"Meanwhile Brockelmann had set the table for supper on the terrace, and
we seated ourselves. Candles were now burning on the table, and their
unsteady, flickering light fell on Susanna's beautiful pale face. Her
white dress was made quite fresh again, and even the withered roses were
replaced by fresh ones; one could see that the old Isabella had been
helping the child.

"Susanna was seated between Klaus and me, Stuermer and Anna Maria
opposite. There was a strawberry _bowle_ on the table, and Susanna drank
eagerly; gradually color came into her cheeks, and her dark eyes began
to shine. And then all at once she was in her element--laughing,
jesting, and mirth. And how she could laugh! I have never heard such a
laugh as Susanna Mattoni's. It ran the whole compass of the scale, so
light and delicious that one was forced to join in it; and as she
laughed, her red mouth displayed the prettiest white teeth, and prattled
mere nonsense and follies, and as she held high her glass to touch with
Stuermer, I saw Klaus look at her with an expression that spoke even
more plainly than his trembling voice yesterday.

"Anna Maria sat silent opposite her, and not the faintest smile passed
over her lips; this graceful trifling was decidedly unpleasant to her.
But Susanna had the majority on her side, for even honest old Pastor
Gruene did not conceal the fact that he was fascinated by her.

"I tried to think how I might silence the little red lips, but in vain.
At last a thought struck me. 'Susanna 'I cried in the midst of her sweet
laugh, 'Susanna, what do you say to a song? I heard you singing so
prettily last evening.'

"'Ah! no, no, Mademoiselle,' she objected; 'I cannot sing before
people.'

"But the gentlemen echoed my request with one voice, and Stuermer
proposed to extinguish the candles, saying that one could surely sing
better by moonlight.

"'Yes, yes!' she said joyfully, 'then I will sing!' And soon the reddish
light had disappeared, and the pale moon's silvery rays fell on the
bright figure of the girl, who had sprung up and was now standing by the
railing.

"'What shall I sing?' she asked, 'Italian or German?'

"'German! German!' cried the gentlemen.

"'Oh! please Susanna,' said I, 'the song you were singing last evening;
Anna Maria and I did not understand the words very well.'

"Anna Maria suddenly rose, but as if thinking better of it, sat down
again. Stuermer had turned half around in his chair and was looking at
Susanna.

"And now she began, leaning on the balustrade; and the same tones came
to us, soft and sweet, and the same words we had heard last evening:

    "'Far through the world I have wandered away,
    And the old strife goes with me wherever I stray;
    Home have I come, and my heart burns with pain,
    Ah, that I only could wander again!
    I am held not by walls, not by bolts, not by bars--
    Two great blue eyes hold me, that shine like the stars I
    And were but my fiery steed by my side,
    Again on his willing back fain would I ride;
    He would bear me away, far away from my home--
    But I've seen thee again, and can never more roam!'

"I looked at Anna Maria in alarm, but her face was turned away, and only
in her trembling white hands, which she had clasped, did I detect the
agitation wrought in her by this song. Who had thought of such a song?
And Stuermer? He had sprung up and stood close by Susanna.

"'Another song, Fraeulein,' he demanded, almost vehemently, 'a different
one. You are much too young for such melancholy!'

"'A German knows no different songs, Herr Baron,' objected Pastor Gruene.
'Old national songs are sad, usually the lament for a faithless love,
for a dead treasure. Let our nation be as it is in this. I would rather
have one little German national song than a dozen French _chansons_.'

"Stuermer did not answer, and there was a painful silence.

"'Another song?' asked Susanna at last--'a lively one?'

"'Yes!' cried Klaus, 'a lively one, a hunting-song, Susanna, or a
drinking-song! 'He had risen in embarrassment at the critical situation,
and filled his glass afresh.

"And Susanna began, in a merry strain:

    "'In the early morn
      A-hunting I went,
    Past my darling's house
      My steps I bent.

    "'Up to the window
      A glance I threw.
    Ah! if she would look down,
      Good luck would ensue.

    "'In vain, she's still dreaming;
      But something stirred.
    By the apple-tree yonder
      A laugh was heard.

    "'And bright as the rosy
      Morning so fair,
    My dear little treasure
      I saw standing there.

    "'Nodding and smiling,
      She beckoned away,
    But not one lucky shot
      Had I on that day.

    "'Are they bewitched, then,
      My powder and lead?
    Each ball flies away,
      Bringing down nothing dead.'

"Susanna suddenly stopped, as if exhausted, and drew a long breath. The
laugh had vanished for a moment from her face.

"'More, more!' cried the gentlemen. 'The charming song cannot possibly
be finished?' asked Stuermer.

"'No, the conclusion is surely wanting,' added Pastor Gruene. And Susanna
drew a long breath and sang on:

    "'And again past the house
      I was going to-day;
    Little grandmother peeped at me
      Over the way.

    "'With a shake of the head.
      She calls with sweet grace,
    "God greet you, and are you
      Off to the chase?"

    "'And with all my might
      I cursed the old dame;
    But my arm remained steady,
      I missed no aim.

    "'And when in surprise
      I told Liebchen the tale.
    She began to laugh
      In a perfect gale.'

"The last verse ended in a real laugh, so roguish and charming and so
irresistible that we were all drawn into it.

"'Now that is enough!' she cried at last. 'Oh! I do so like to hear how
people have to laugh with me when I begin! Oh! I have done it so often
when Isa tried to scold me, but now'--she suddenly stopped--'I haven't
laughed for so long, I thought I should have forgotten how, but, thank
fortune, I can still do it! Oh, I do like to laugh so!'

"Anna Maria rose and went into the garden-parlor, as if she had
something to attend to there, but she did not come back, nor did she
come when Stuermer and the clergyman wished to take their leave of her.
Klaus looked for her in the sitting-room, and even went up to her
bedroom, but he returned alone, and the gentlemen had to leave without
bidding her good-by.

"'Pray excuse Anna Maria, dear Edwin,' I heard Klaus say; 'she probably
does not dream of your going so early; you are certainly in a great
hurry.'

"It was true; Stuermer's departure was very abrupt; toward the last he
had scarcely spoken a word. I thought it was because he was reminded of
his first love; that melody and the words still kept ringing in my ears;
an unfortunate song!

"Susanna had long been in bed when Klaus and I stood together in the
sitting-room again. I had firmly resolved to inform him of my
observations of the evening before, for I saw that Anna Maria was not to
be spoken to again about Susanna.

"'Klaus!' I began. He was walking slowly up and down, his hands behind
him, and an anxious wrinkle on his brow. 'Klaus, do you know where the
old actress is living now?'

"He stood still. 'No, aunt, but--do not take offence--it is quite a
matter of indifference to me. Forgive me, my head is so full.'

"I was silent. 'Good!' thought I; 'he is indifferent at last, then.'

"'Please tell me,' he now turned around to me, 'what you think about
Anna Maria? I do not understand her at all as she is now.'

"'You do not either of you understand each other, as you are now,' I
replied, not without sharpness.

"Klaus blushed. 'That may be,' he said, stroking his face.

"'Klaus,' I continued, 'do not let it go further, do not let this
discord between you take root. You are the eldest, Klaus, a reasonable
man----'

"'No, aunt, no; in this I am right!' he interrupted vehemently. 'You do
not know what passed between us this morning----'

"He broke off abruptly and turned to his newspaper at at the table, for
Anna Maria had come in. The basket of keys hung at her side, and she had
tied a white apron over her dress. Brockelmann followed her with the
silver that had been in use to-day, and was now rubbed up, ready to be
put away. Anna Maria opened the carved corner-cupboard, and began to lay
away the shining silver, piece by piece, in its place.

"Klaus had seated himself and was turning over the newspapers; the clock
already pointed to midnight. The windows were open, and from time to
time faint flashes of lightning lighted up the sky over the barns and
stables. I had become wide awake again all at once; I could not and
would not let these two be alone again to-night; they should not speak
together about Susanna.

"But Anna Maria now closed the cupboard and went up to her brother.
'Klaus,' she said in a soft voice, 'let us not leave each other thus;
let us talk the matter over once more, quietly.'

"He laid down the paper and looked at her in surprise. A faint flush lay
on her face, and her attitude was almost beseeching. 'Gladly, Anna
Maria,' he replied, rising; 'you mean concerning Susanna's future
employment? Have you any proposals to make?'

"'Yes,' she said, firmly; and after a pause continued: 'I will yield to
your opinion that physical labor is not the right thing for Susanna. But
a life of dreamy idleness I consider far more injurious to her. Indeed,
Klaus, my personal feelings toward Susanna do not speak in this. I do
not hate her, but that her nature is uncongenial to me I must own. So,
then, without regard to that, Klaus, I must repeat what I said this
morning: let Susanna go away from here, take care of her somewhere else;
she is out of place here; do it for her own sake.'

"She had spoken beseechingly, and stepping nearer him, laid her right
hand on his shoulder.

"'Well, what more?' he asked, rapidly stroking his beard. 'Where would
you think best to banish this child?'

"'Send her to a good boarding-school; let her be a teacher; she is poor,
and it is an honorable position, or----'

"'You are probably thinking of Mademoiselle Lenon in this connection,
Anna Maria?' rejoined Klaus. 'I still have her "honorable position"
distinctly before my eyes, which she held in dealing with your
stubbornness. If there ever was a being totally unfit to take upon
herself the martyrdom of a governess, it is Susanna Mattoni!'

"A slight shadow passed over Anna Maria's face as he spoke of her
stubbornness, but she was silent.

"'Perhaps,' continued Klaus bitterly, 'you would also like to make an
actress of her because she happens to have a voice and recites
charmingly.' He pushed away the newspapers and sprang up. 'I am
unutterably exasperated, Anna Maria, that you should venture to repeat
this proposition. I was not prepared for it, I must confess! What makes
you appear so hostile toward Susanna? Do you know, you who live here in
happy security, what it means for a girl so young, so inexperienced, to
be thus thrust into the world? Surely not! You fulfil your duties here,
you care and labor as hundreds would not do in your place; but here you
act the mistress, inapproachable, untouched by all the common things of
life. You do not know, even by name, those humiliations which a woman
in a dependent position must endure. I know, indeed, that hundreds
_must_ endure them, and hundreds, perhaps, do not feel what they are
deprived of; but this girl _would_ feel it, and would be unhappy, most
unhappy!

"He paused for a moment and looked at Anna Maria. She had clasped her
hands, and coldly and steadily returned his look; an almost mocking
smile lay on her lips, and put Klaus beside himself.

"'You certainly have no comprehension of this!' he cried, his face
flushed with anger. 'You have everything, Anna Maria, but you have never
possessed a heart! You can do everything but that which glorifies and
ennobles a woman--love. Anna Maria, that you cannot do! I feel deep pity
for you, for you lack a woman's sweetest charm; love and pity go
hand-in-hand. I could not imagine you as a solicitous wife, or even as a
mother; how can I expect pity for a strange child?'

"'Klaus! for God's sake, stop!' I entreated in mortal terror, for Anna
Maria had grown pale as death, and her eyes stared out into the dark
night with a vacant, terrified expression, but not a word of defence
passed her lips. Klaus shook off my hand, and continued with unchecked
vehemence:

"'It is time for me to tell you, Anna Maria; it must be said some time.
I am your guardian, and it is my right and my duty. I must, alas! accuse
myself of having given you too much liberty, and you have abused it. You
have become cold and hard; I said before I could not imagine you as a
loving mother, as a wife--that you will never be, for you will not bend.
You would never do a rash, thoughtless act, but you are unable to make a
sacrifice from real affection from your innermost heart--because you do
not understand loving, Anna Maria. As I looked at Edwin to-day, my
heart and courage sank; if ever a man was created to win a maiden's
love, it is he! But you, Anna Maria, just as you let him go away, so you
will let Susanna; it is not hard for you, because you have no heart----'

"'Stop, Klaus, stop!' Anna Maria's voice rang through the room, in
piercing woe; despairingly she stretched out her arms toward him. 'Say
nothing more, not one word; I cannot bear it!' One could see that she
wanted to say more; her trembling lips parted, but no sound passed them,
and in another moment she had turned and gone quickly out of the room.

"'Oh, Klaus!' I cried, weeping, 'you were too hard; you had no occasion
to speak so!' But I stood alone in my tears, for Klaus also left the
room, for the first time failing to pay attention to his aunt, and
slammed the door behind him.

"Yes, I stood alone and believed myself dreaming! Was this the
comfortable old room at Buetze, where formerly peace had dwelt bodily?
The candles flickered restlessly on the table, a chilling draught of air
came through the open window, and thunder faintly muttered in the
distance. No, peace had flown, and injustice, care, and animosity had
entered, had pressed their way between two human hearts which till now
had been united in true love; and there, up-stairs, lay and slept a fair
young fellow-creature, and the picture of the Mischief-maker smiled down
on her, as if glad of a successor. Yes, Klaus was right, and Anna Maria
was right; how was the difference to be made up? Ah! how quickly is a
bitter, crushing word said and heard, but a whole world of tears cannot
make it unsaid again."




CHAPTER IX.


"I could not sleep that night; I rose from my bed again and sat down by
my window in the gray dawn, and my old heart was fearful for what must
come now. I loved both the children so much, and, God knows, I would
have given years of my useless life if I could have blotted out the last
few months. And I was groping about wholly in the dark, for Anna Maria
was reserved and uncommunicative, and Klaus--what would he do? He could
not come and say, 'Aunt Rosamond, I love Susanna Mattoni, and I wish to
marry her!' I should have had to throw up my hands and laugh! Klaus, the
last Hegewitz, and Susanna Mattoni, the child of an obscure actress! And
Klaus would have had to laugh with me.

"It was a rainy day, just beginning; wonderfully cool air came through
the open windows and the leaves rustled in the wind, and the rain
pattered on the roofs; the maids were running across the court with
their milk-pails, the poultry was being fed, and Brockelmann talking to
the maids, and there went the bailiff in the pasture; everything was as
usual and yet so different.

"Then a carriage came rolling into the court-yard. Heavens! that was our
own with the brown span. It stopped before the front steps, and Klaus
came out of the house and greeted the gentleman getting out. I had
leaned far out of the window, but now drew back in alarm--it was the
doctor, our old Reuter, and at this early hour! Anna Maria was my first
thought. I ran out; but no, there she was, just coming out of Susanna's
room. She still wore her blue dress of yesterday, but there were
blood-stains here and there on the large white apron.

"'Susanna?' I faltered. She nodded, and gave me her hand. 'Go in, aunt;
I wish to speak with Reuter first,' she said softly; 'Susanna is ill.'
Almost stunned, I let myself be pushed through the open door. The
curtains were drawn, but on the chimney-piece a candle was burning, and
threw its dim, flickering light on the girl's face, so that I could see
the dark fever-roses which had bloomed upon it during the night. Her
eyes were wide open, but she did not know me; she thought I was Isa.

"'Isa, I have sung, too; Isa, don't be angry; it was so beautiful in the
moonlight, and it did not hurt me at all.' And she began to sing:

    "'Home have I come, my heart burns with pain--
    Oh! that I only could wander again!'

"And then she passed her small hands over her white night-dress. 'Take
away the red flowers, Isa!'

"I laid a white cloth over it for her. Poor child! The swoon, the
laughing, the sweet singing, that was already fever.

"Old Reuter came into the room and stepped up to the bed. Anna Maria
stood behind him, the torment of expectation on her pale face, and from
outside, through the unlatched door, came the sound of heavy breathing;
that must be Klaus. The old gentleman felt Susanna's pulse long and
cautiously; he was not a man of many words, and one could scarcely find
out from him what one's disease was; but he turned at last to Anna
Maria:

"'A pitiful little lady, Fraeulein; the good God made her expressly for
a knick-knack table; wrapped in cotton, sent to the South, and treated
like a princess, without making any sort of exertion herself, something
might yet be made of her. But first'--he drew his watch from his pocket
and took hold of her hand again--'first we have enough to do here. Who
will undertake the nursing?'

"'Doctor, do you think that bodily exertion--I mean, very early rising
and domestic activity--could be the cause?' asked Anna Maria, with
faltering voice.

"'Up at four, and from the kitchen into the cold milk-cellar, and then
again in the glowing sun, at the bleaching place, and so alternately,
was it not?' asked the old gentleman. 'By all means the surest way to
completely prostrate a person of such a constitution; moreover, you
might have perceived it before, Fraeulein.'

"Anna Maria grew a shade paler. 'But day before yesterday she walked for
an hour in the heat, and sang a great deal,' I interposed, for I felt
sorry for Anna Maria. "'Then one thing has led to another,' declared the
old gentleman. 'Singing is poison--no more of that! Will you undertake
the nursing, Fraeulein Hegewitz?' he asked me.

"'No, I,' replied Anna Maria.

"'Isa! Isa!' called Susanna.

"'Where is she staying?' asked Anna Maria, while Dr. Reuter had gone out
to write a prescription.

"'In Dambitz,' I returned, oppressed; but she did not look at all
surprised. She only begged me to stay with Susanna till she had changed
her dress, and sent a messenger to the old woman. Then she came back, so
as not to stay long away from Susanna's bed, for, strangely enough,
Mademoiselle Isa Pfannenschmidt did not appear.

"Anna Maria had sent Brockelmann in a carriage to fetch the old woman.
Meanwhile Susanna pushed Anna Maria away with her weak hands, and called
'Isa!' incessantly in her delirium. With a white face Anna Maria pushed
her chair behind the curtains and listened to the low, eager whispering
of the sick girl. But once the surging blood shot from neck to brow, as
Susanna spoke of Klaus, and Anna Maria turned her eyes almost
reproachfully toward the door, behind which a light step had just
stopped.

"That was surely Klaus again; certainly twenty times during the day he
came to the door to listen; yet who could have closed the little red
mouth which had just called his name again, quite aloud, and laughed,
and talked of bonbons, of moonlight, and of songs?

"On the way to my room I met Brockelmann, who had just returned, and was
standing in the corridor by Klaus. Her face was very red; she pointed to
my room, and here began to describe, in a voice half-choked with
indignation, all that she had found in the dwelling of the old comedian,
excepting herself. The blacksmith's wife had told her she had lately
boiled some red pomade, and put it in a number of little porcelain jars,
and taken them away to sell. She would often go away so, and be gone a
fortnight. 'She is an old vagabond,' added Brockelmann, 'a beggar-woman
whom the constable ought to shut up in the nearest tower!' And with a
contemptuous air she drew forth one of the little boxes in question,
which was correctly tied up with gold paper, and bore a label which
explained at length the red pomade and its value: '_Rouge de Theatre,
premiere qualite!_'

"'Paint!' said I, smiling.

"'And for these sinful wares she gets a pile of money,' continued the
old woman, 'and what does she do with it? She eats cakes and chocolate,
and the children at the forge run about with gay silk ribbons on their
rough pig-tails; and all around in the corners there were heaps of
knick-knacks, enough for ten fools to trim up their caps with. It is a
shame!'

"'When is she coming back?' asked Klaus.

"'The Lord only knows; she went away yesterday.' Brockelmann turned to
go, irritated by her vain mission, which had taken so much time. But she
stopped at the door, and a friendly expression lay on her face. 'I am
charged with best greetings from the Herr Baron,' she said; 'he was not
a little surprised to see me looking into his garden from the old
woman's window; I explained to him shortly what brought me there.'

"'Is the house so near the castle garden?' I asked.

"Brockelmann nodded. 'Yes, indeed, the old woman sees the whole
beautiful garden; and what a garden!' With that she went out.

"'It is well, on the whole,' said Klaus, after a pause, 'that the old
woman is not there. But will Brockelmann be able to nurse her?'

"'No,' I replied, 'Anna Maria.'

"'Anna Maria?' he asked, and his lip quivered.

"'Klaus,' I begged, 'don't humbug your own self. You must be convinced
in your inmost heart that this girl could not have a better nurse than
Anna Maria.'

"'I have been perplexed about her,' he answered gloomily.

"'And she about you!' I replied.

"He grew red. 'For what reason?' he asked. 'Because I took this girl
under the protection of my house? Because I interfered with an
over-taxation of her strength? Because----' he broke on.

"'Anna Maria fears that--well, that _la petite_ will be too much
spoiled,' I replied.

"Klaus shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, and now?' he asked. 'Listen, aunt,
I thought nothing in the world could alter me; I thought I had become a
calm, quiet man; but every nerve has twitched since I have been
compelled to see how this girl is treated. Once, as a little boy, I
looked on, powerless with rage, to see two great boys tormenting a
may-bug; they had climbed a tree because I had scratched and bitten
them; my small limbs would not carry me up there, but the dumb fury, the
rising tumult in my childish heart, I have never forgotten to this day;
and I felt exactly the same way when I heard those little feet tripping
here and there about the house--on, on, now on the kitchen-stairs, now
in the corridor. Do you not suppose I could see how they kept growing
more and more weary, and what a mighty effort they made when Anna
Maria's merciless voice called, "Here, Susanna!" or "_Venez donc_,
Susanna!" "Quickly, we will go into the milk-cellar!" "Susanna, where is
the key of the linen-press?" I was a coward to endure it, not to have
interfered till it was too late. Great heavens! it shall be different,'
he cried, and his clenched fist fell threateningly on the table. The
great, strong man was beside himself with anxiety and rage.

"I did not venture to answer, and after a few minutes he left the room.
I heard him lingering again at Susanna's door, and then go away softly.
The misfortune was here! Poor Anna Maria! Poor Klaus!

"Toward noon Anna Maria came to me, even paler than before. 'She talks
incessantly of Klaus,' she said slowly. 'I knew that it must come, but
Klaus did not understand me. She loves him, aunt, believe me.'

"My thoughts were so full of Klaus that I said, quite consistently: 'And
he loves her!'

"Anna Maria did not understand me aright. 'What did you say, aunt?' she
asked, the weariness all gone from her eyes.

"'I said Klaus is tenderly inclined toward Susanna Mattoni,' I repeated
boldly.

"The girl broke into a smile--nay, she even laughed--and I saw her firm
white teeth shine for the first time for many a day; then she grew
grave. 'How can you joke now, aunt?'

"'_Mais, mon ange_, I am not joking,' I replied warmly. Anna Maria
puzzled me; she must have noticed it for a long time; then why was she
so opposed to the child?

"'You are not joking, aunt?' she asked icily. 'Then you little
understand how to judge Klaus. Klaus, with his cool reason, his calm
nature, he who might have had a wife any day if he had wished, should
care for this child--it is ridiculous, perfectly ridiculous!'

"'But, Anna Maria, are you so blind?' I cried.

"'I am not blind,' she replied, with one of her glances which showed
plainly her contempt of my opinion. 'Not till I see the two come,
united, out of the church will I believe that Klaus loves her, and that,
Aunt Rosamond, neither you nor I will live to see.'

"'Stop, Anna Maria!' I begged. 'It is, of course, possible that I am
mistaken, but--God grant that you are right,' I added.

"Anna Maria was silent for a moment. 'No,' she said then, as if to
herself, lifting up her arms--'no, Klaus is not capable of such an
error. I believe in Klaus. His kind heart, his compassion for the
orphan, impel him to be hard toward me; our opinions as to Susanna's
welfare are so contrary. But I know, aunt, that Klaus loves me so much,
that I stand before any other in his heart, so I will gladly bear the
harshness; perhaps he has borne something harder for my sake. When
Susanna is gone we shall find the old good-will back again.'

"'I do not believe that Susanna will go away, will be allowed to go
away,' I threw in, uncertainly, touched by her confidence.

"Her eyes shone. 'Leave that to me, Aunt Rosa,' she replied; 'she
_shall_ go, take my word for it.'

"'And if you vex Klaus afresh by such a demand?'

"'Klaus desires Susanna's best good, and he will find some other place
for her as soon as he learns that he is not an object of indifference to
her. Klaus is a man of honor, and a glance will suffice.'

"'What, Anna Maria?' I groaned; 'you would inform him that--that----'

"'Yes,' she replied.

"'I beg you, Anna Maria, do not do it; do not pour oil on the fire, my
child; be silent----'

"'Never, aunt; I have been silent too long already!' she said decidedly.
'I saw it coming on, it had to come, and I had not the courage to warn
Klaus, and say: "Protect this child from the saddest thing that can come
to a maiden's heart; do not let it awaken into a first love, which must
then be renounced."'

"'Anna Maria, for Heaven's sake,' I implored, 'how do you know so
certainly that Susanna no longer regards Klaus with indifference? You
cannot take her feverish talk for anything positive. She talks about
Stuermer as well as Klaus. I beg you, keep silent. It is only a
conjecture of yours; Susanna may be in a state of uncertainty still,
herself.'

"'A precocious, passionate nature, like that girl's?' she asked, and
went to the door, about to leave; 'there is nothing uncertain there. I
owe it to her.'

"'Anna Maria, let her get well first; it is over-hasty, and may make a
dreadful jumble!'

"She did not answer, but gave me a nod that agreed with her earnest
look, and then left me alone with my thoughts.

"How sorry I was for her, this young maiden with the heart of an old
woman! How this firm confidence in Klaus touched me! I had expected a
little jealousy from her, had supposed that Susanna's appearance seemed
dangerous enough to her to rob her of her brother's heart; but nothing
of all this--that she wished to preserve the girl's peace of mind. She
believed in Klaus with a firm, unshaken trust. 'I know that I stand
before all others in his heart, only our opinions about Susanna differ
widely.' Klaus was a man of honor, Klaus could not marry Susanna; it lay
beyond the reach of possibility! A love without this final end was not
conceivable to her pure mind; of a passion which could outreach all
bounds she seemed to have no foreboding. It did not occur to her to
consider her brother's altered manner, his hasty vehemence of the day
before, as anything but the expression of his lively anxiety about an
orphaned child, as excessive chivalry, as a justified irritation at her
energetic opposition; but if she had only first spoken----

"Ah, me! My old head showed me no outlet. What should I do, with whom
speak? Neither of them could judge of the matter as it lay now; the only
remaining way was to appeal to Susanna's maidenly pride. But dared I?
Had I the right to contrive an intrigue behind Klaus's back? For,
although I meant well, still it was an intrigue. And suppose that I did
tread this by-way, what certainty was there that it would lead to the
goal? And how, after all, should I tread it?

"Susanna's illness was violent but brief. The delirium had ceased by the
next day, but she lay very feeble for a week after, without speaking or
showing interest in anything. But her great eyes continually followed
Anna Maria, as she moved noiselessly about the sick-room. Anna Maria's
manner toward Susanna was altered; there was a certain gentleness and
tenderness about her that became her wonderfully well. Whether it was
sympathy with the invalid, or whether she wanted to show the girl whom
she had wished to send away from the shelter of her home that she
cherished no ill-will toward her, I do not know; at any rate, she took
care of her like a loving mother.

"After about a week Susanna raised her head, begged to have the windows
opened, and showed an appetite; and when the doctor came he found her
sitting up in bed, eating with excellent appetite the prescribed
convalescent's dish, a broth of young pigeons.

"'Bravo!' cried the gay little man, 'keep on so! A small glass of
Bordeaux, too, would do no harm.'

"'And to-morrow I shall get up!' cried Susanna.

"'Not to-morrow; and day after to-morrow I shall inspect you again
before you do it,' answered the doctor.

"Susanna laughed, and then, with the pleasant feeling of returning
health, lay back on the pillows, took a hundred-leaved rose from the
bunch of flowers which Klaus sent daily through Anna Maria, to be placed
by the sick-bed, and asked--what! did I hear aright? Horrified, I turned
my head away and looked for Anna Maria; fortunately, she had gone out
with the doctor--and asked: 'Has Klaus--Herr von Hegewitz--ever inquired
for me?' And as she spoke her dark eyes flashed beneath the long lashes.

"'Oh, yes, Susanna, but he is very much occupied with the harvesting
now,' I said deceitfully, 'and he knows you are having the best of
care.'

"She nodded. 'And has not Herr von Stuermer been here? Did he not know
that I was ill?'

"'Stuermer? Yes, I think he has been here frequently,' I replied.

"'And hasn't he asked at all how I was?' she questioned me further.

"'You are assuming, _ma mignonne_!' said I, irritated. 'He has inquired
for you, perhaps--yes, I remember--nothing more.'

"'How ungallant!' whispered Susanna, sulkily. At that moment the door
opened and Brockelmann entered with a little basket of choice apricots,
with a fresh rosebud placed here and there among them.

"'An expression of regard from Baron von Stuermer, who sent his wishes
for the Fraeulein's improvement, hoping that she might like to eat the
fruit.' With these words the basket was set down rather roughly on the
table beside the bed. The old woman's glance met mine, and in her eyes
was plainly to be read: 'Well, let anybody who can understand such a
state of affairs; I can't!' But Susanna, with a cry of joy, had seized
the basket, and buried her nose in the flowers, inhaling their spicy
odor. Then she rested it on her knees, put her delicate arms around it,
leaned her head on the dainty handle, and with a happy smile closed her
eyes, and thus Anna Maria found her. She frowned at this ecstasy. 'It
is very kind of Stuermer,' she said, quietly; 'he always shows such
delicate attentions when he knows any one to be ill and suffering.' Then
she rang for a plate and silver fruit-knife. 'Give them to me, Susanna;
I will prepare some of the beautiful fruit for you.'"




CHAPTER X.


"Late in the afternoon one dull rainy day we were sitting in the
garden-parlor, Anna Maria with her sewing, Klaus reading the newspaper
and smoking, when Stuermer came in to talk over some matters with Klaus.
Then conversation about horses ended in a political discussion, in which
Anna Maria took part with a certain degree of liveliness, and Klaus
joined warmly, drawing strong whiffs from his pipe. Stuermer, who had
never taken a pipe in his mouth, now and then drove back the clouds with
his silk handkerchief in sport, and I amused myself with listening to
the ready answers which came from Anna Maria's young lips.

"The demeanor of brother and sister toward each other was singular. Anna
Maria waited upon her brother with almost humble tenderness, while he
seemed distrustful, and then again secretly touched by the
self-sacrificing spirit of the nurse who devoted herself to Susanna. He
especially avoided looking at her, or speaking to her directly.

"'How is Fraeulein Mattoni getting on?' broke in Stuermer in the midst of
a well-turned sentence of Klaus's about the recent attempts to make
beet-root sugar.

"'Well!' replied Anna Maria; 'she is reading an old family history which
I hunted up the other day, and enjoying your delicious apricots. Thank
you for them, Stuermer; they give Susanna great pleasure.'

"Then the conversation turned upon the lately deceased Duke of Weimar,
Charles Augustus, and from him to his celebrated friend, Goethe, of whom
Stuermer affirmed that he was intending to marry again after the death of
his wife. Anna Maria rejected the idea incredulously; she could not
believe that he, at his great age, would be so foolish. She was a sworn
enemy to Goethe. Her plain, straightforward mind had been disagreeably
affected by Werther; such an overflow of feeling could but seem strange
to her. Goethe's numerous love-affairs set him out in a light which
brought the ideal conception of him down to the atmosphere of common
mortals. That genius draws different boundaries, that 

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