Oh, how delightful it is that I, who have never been able to call any one by these names, can now apply them to you!
In the red blank-book which you, dear sister, gave me, are many notes of travel, which I hope to be able, some time, to write out: now I cannot. Out with the best thing: I am betrothed!!! It occurs to me, while making these three exclamation marks, that their form has a meaning. They seem to me like the image of a comet. Do ask Professor Einsiedel if I have not made a great scientific discovery.
Do you remember, dear sister, my telling you of my meeting a girl with two boys in the forest, that time when I was coming to find our friend Herr Dournay? That girl is my betrothed. Her name is Rosalie, like yours. She looks enough like you to be your sister. Yes, she is your sister. She has brown eyes, like you.
"But who is she, then?" I hear you ask, laying aside your sewing and looking at me with both eyes—I had almost said, with both hands.
Well, just let me tell you quietly.
Now, then, the maiden whom I met in the green-wood, my wood-maiden, is the daughter of a teacher, and—I beg you to hear this respectfully—she has passed her own examination as a teacher, and her brothers are splendid fellows. I did not venture to approach the girl, although I recognized her at the first glance. I tried to ingratiate myself with the brothers and said one day to the smaller one, who took to me at once—"Tell your sister I met her in the forest, last May, on her way to chapel with you; she had on a brown dress."
"Why don't you tell her so yourself?" asked the little fellow.
I had no time to answer him; for just then my wood-maiden came along, and began reproving her brother for annoying the strange gentleman, when the little one shouted, "Why, it's the gentleman you imitate, when you show how he looked over his spectacles at you."
Now it was out. She had made fun of me? She too? I took off my glasses, and must confess, I should have liked to throw them into the sea, and myself after them.
"What did she say?" you ask.