The letter which she had sent to Herr Amandus von Nebelstern made a frightful impression on him. Ere long, Fräulein Aennchen received the following answer--
'Idol of my Heart, Heavenly Anna,--
"Daggers--sharp, glowing, poisoned, death-dealing daggers were to me the words of your letter, which pierced my breast through and through. Oh, Anna! you to be torn from me. What a thought! I cannot, even now, understand how it was that I did not go mad on the spot and commit some terrible deed. But I fled the face of man, overpowered with rage at my deadly destiny, after dinner--without the game of billiards which I generally play--out into the woods, where I wrung my hands, and called on your name a thousand times. It came on a tremendously heavy rain, and I had on a new cap, red velvet, with a splendid gold tassel (everybody says I never had anything so becoming). The rain was spoiling it, and it was brand-new. But what are caps, what are velvet and gold, to a despairing lover? I strode up and down till I was wet to the skin and chilled to the bone, and had a terrible pain in my stomach. This drove me into a restaurant near, where I got them to make me some excellent mulled wine, and had a pipe of your heavenly Virginia tobacco. I soon felt myself elevated on the wings of a celestial inspiration, took out my pocket-book, and, oh!--wondrous gift of poetry--the love-despair and the stomach-ache both disappeared at once. I shall content myself with writing out for you only the last of these poems; it will inspire you with heavenly hope, as it did myself.
"Wrapped in darkest sorrow--
In my heart, extinguished,
No love-tapers burning--
Joy hath no to-morrow.
"Ha! the Muse approaches,
Words and rhymes inspiring,
Little verse inscribing,