Your son is an extremely practical man, you will have much satisfaction in him.
If your under-master chooses to come here, I can procure him much employment in piano lessons. We have teachers enough in Germany to export some.
[Roland to the Professorin.]
Pardon me if I no longer venture to call you mother. It seems to me like an injustice to my dead mother that I ever did so. I entreat you to have her grave carefully attended to, and to keep it strewn with her favorite flowers, ericas and pinks.
Now that is off my mind, I will write of other things.
When I think of the green cottage, it always seems to me as if it were floating on the sea, and must come hither to us.
Eric and Manna have, of course, described our voyage to you. While at sea, I learned tolerably well how the ship was managed, and I should have liked best to enlist in the navy; but Eric would not hear of it.
It is probable that my father is fighting against us by sea, so it is better for me to be in the army.
I have seen Lilian again. I can say to you alone that we are engaged. Do not say that I am but seventeen, and she but fourteen years old. Events have made us older. Why, Franklin wanted to marry Miss Read, when he was only eighteen. We have vowed to belong to one another when the war is over.
Please let these lines be seen by no eyes but yours.