"I very often," continued Anton, "feel the responsibility laid upon me by your father's indisposition a grievous burden. It is natural that he should be annoyed with me when I have to communicate unwelcome facts. This can not be avoided. I have strength, however, to brave much that is painful, so long as you and the baroness are unshaken in your conviction that I always act in your interest so far as I understand it."
"My mother knows what you are to us," said Lenore. "She never, indeed, speaks of you to me, but I can read her glance when she looks at you across the table. She has always known how to conceal her thoughts; how she does so more than ever—yes, even to me. I seem to see her pure image behind a white veil; and she is become so fragile, that often the tears rush to my eyes merely in looking at her. She always says what is kind and judicious, but she seems to have lost interest in most things; and though she smiles at what I say, I fancy that the effort gives her pain."
"Yes, just so," cried Anton mournfully.
"She only lives to take care of my father. No one, not even her daughter, knows what she inwardly suffers. She is like an angel, Wohlfart, who lingers on our earth reluctantly. I can be but little to her, that I feel. I am not helpful, and want all that makes my mother so lovely—- the self-control, the calm bearing, the enchanting manner. My father is sick—my brother thoughtless—my mother, spite of all her love, reserved toward me. Wohlfart, I am indeed alone."
She leaned on the side of the well and wept.
"Perhaps it will all be for your good," said Anton, soothingly, from the other side the well. "Yours is an energetic nature, and I believe you can feel very strongly."
"I can be very angry," chimed in Lenore through her tears, "and then very careless again."
"You grew up without a care in prosperous circumstances, and your life was easy as a game."
"My lessons were difficult enough, I am sure," remonstrated Lenore.
"I think that you were in danger of becoming a little wild and haughty in character."