"But I know that you have everything which I lack. The repose of your manner,—how I envy and admire you for it! You can sit perfectly quiet all the while grandpapa is reading the papers. It drives me about like a will-o'-the-wisp."
"That is your nature," Johanna rejoined. "There is always something about you, not like a will-o'-the-wisp, but like a rippling wave."
Magelone shook her head. "Far more like a will-o'-the-wisp. The wave has its goal, flows in a destined course; I go I know not whither."
"But you are gay and happy; what more would you have?" exclaimed Johanna.
Magelone replied, "Not always. Latterly I have been rather gloomy than gay. What do you think of Johann Leopold?" she added, after a pause.
"I cannot judge yet," Johanna replied. "I have hardly talked with him."
"He does not talk," Magelone interrupted her. "He is just what you have seen him day out and day in. It is the same with every one. Grandpapa is always dictatorial, Aunt Thekla always good and tiresome, Johann Leopold always odd. Doesn't he look like the marble guest?"
"He looks melancholy and ill."
"And yet he has no positive complaint that I know of," said Magelone. "His hobby is chemistry. Whenever he is not on duty with grandpapa he is shut up in his laboratory in the garden, with all sorts of sounds and smells. It is a perfect witch's kitchen there. Can you imagine an odder match than he and myself?"
"Magelone!" cried Johanna. "You do not mean to say——"