"My first inquiry the next morning was for the old woman. She was gone, I learned, and the FrÄulein 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. 'FrÄulein 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:

"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, FrÄulein 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 DomrÖschen, 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 FrÄulein 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: 'StÜrmer 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 'StÜrmer.'

"'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 StÜrmer.'

"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 StÜrmer 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 StÜrmer'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 StÜrmer 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 StÜrmer'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.

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."