"I believe you are really a proud one," she said, and looked at me with great displeasure.
During the time that I took my lessons, Miss Risa de Vall was always zealous to point out to me the many great and little things that make for beauty, order, and usefulness, and never for a moment did she waver in her noble task. Gently, yet sternly, she checked my often wild behaviour, dealing firmly and persistently with whatsoever fault she found with me. After she had known me for about six months she asked me one evening whether I had no other friend besides the cook. I said "No," and then she told me that she had had a young lady as pupil in the town where she used to teach a few years ago. Would I like to write to her and ask her whether she cared to make friends with me? I was, of course, eager to get to know the girl so tenderly spoken of by my beloved mistress, and agreed with all my heart. I wrote to her on the following day, and received an answer by return of post. Her letter was brief, but sweet. When I showed the note to the cook, she said: "That is a real lady, to be sure." I had, of course, no doubt about that. By the flickering light of the candle, I sat down a few days later to write to my new friend, but found it extremely difficult to begin. But after I had managed to start I never stopped until I had filled at least four to six pages. What I wrote about were all things of which I thought constantly, but never confided to anybody—nay, not even to the cook.
During all this time I had heard nothing from my brother, and nobody knew of his whereabouts. One day I got a note from my father in which he told me that he had received a letter from Charlie. He wrote that he was very well off, and made quite a lot of money. When I read that, my heart beat faster. It is true that I never quite believed what he had said to me at our parting; but now I recalled every word of it, and wondered in a vague sense whether he was going to take me to Vienna. I remembered his advice about reading Schiller and Goethe, and felt a little alarmed because I had not yet done so.
"There is no doubt," I said to myself, "that he is moving in society by now, and my utter ignorance of Schiller's dramas would be a source of constant humiliation to him." The fact that he had not written to me since he went away did not surprise me in the least. I thought that he had been obliged to work very hard, and had no time to spare. In order to be prepared for him in case he should really come for me, I made it my serious business to get a book by Schiller. But where was I to get it from? I had no money to spare for books, and could not think of buying one. In the dining-room there was a book-case, but it was always locked up. The books there seemed to be regarded more for an ornament than for use, since nobody ever took one out to read.
But after another five or six months had elapsed, and no further news was heard of my brother, I gradually forgot those glowing pictures of an easy future, and finally thought no more about them.
When I had been at my place for about two years, I happened to make the acquaintance of a young lady whom I met occasionally in the woods when walking with the children. She used to sit down on the bench beside me, and while the children ran about and played among the trees, she would sometimes start a conversation.
"Why do you always stay at the same place?" she asked me one day.
"Where else should I go?"
"I could not answer that question offhand, but a girl like you ought to try what luck she can have in the world."