The two women were touched by these words, although Annele did not leave off counting the stitches in a pair of slippers that she had begun to work for Lenz. Neither of them spoke for some little time, till the mother said—"Yes! besides, what first-rate connections you will have in my other two sons-in-law. I told you already that I love and respect them, but differently from you, I have known you from the time you were a child, and I feel towards you as if you had been my own flesh and blood. But you have seen them, and know what well bred, genteel young men they both are—and men of business, into the bargain. Many a one would be glad, if they had as much capital as they make in a single year."
After a pause, however, Annele said—"If that tiresome rain would only cease, then, Lenz, we would go out driving together at once."
"I should, indeed, enjoy being with you alone under God's spacious sky. The house seems too confined for my sense of happiness. Annele, we would drive to the town."
"Wherever you like."
Presently Lenz said again:—"I am very glad my 'Magic Flute' was so safely packed, for I should so grieve if it was injured."
"That is very needless anxiety," said the mother. "The thing is now sold, and of course the purchaser runs all risks."
"No, mother, that's not at all the case. I understand my Lenz better. He is attached to a work that cost him so much anxiety, and he would have been glad never to have parted with it. If one has passed days and nights, month after month, engrossed with one object, it would be very distressing to know that it was injured."
"Yes, dear Annele; you are indeed my own!" cried Lenz, joyfully. How well and thoroughly this excellent girl understood his feelings and explained them!
The mother chided them playfully:—"It's no good talking to you lovers; anyone who is not in love, is sure to be wrong in your eyes." She went in and out, for Lenz had begged that, at all events at first, Annele might be released from her attendance in the public room. "I am not jealous," said he, "far from it; but I should like to intercept every look you cast on others, for they all belong to me, and me only."
One afternoon the rain ceased for an hour. Lenz did not desist from urging Annele, till she consented to go with him to his own house. "I feel as if everything there was expecting you. All the stores, and presses, and china, and other things that you will like to see."