"It would be nicer if you would read, Jule," added her mother, "but I must say too, Paula, that you have been for the last few days so short and snappish that I should really like to know what is amiss with you. You seem out of sorts with every one about you."
"But mamma, with whom can I have any real companionship? I have not a single friend in all Tannenburg. I have nobody in all the world with whom I can be intimate."
The mother suggested that Paula might be a little more friendly with her sister Lili, and also with Miss Hanenwinkel. But Paula declared, that Lili was much too young, and the governess much too old. The latter was really only twenty, but to Paula she seemed very old indeed. For girls to be intimate, she declared they must be of the same age, so that they could thoroughly understand each other's feelings, and they must be always together. Without such a friend Paula said there was no real pleasure in life, for a girl needed some one to whom she could confide her secrets, and who would tell her own in return.
"Yes, Paula is at the romantic age," said her brother. "I am sure that for a long time she has peeped into every field flower to see if it would not suddenly unfurl a hidden banner, and turn into a Joan of Arc. Every little mole that she sees in the fields, she half suspects may wear a seal-ring on his little finger, and be a Gustavus Vasa in disguise, searching amid the mole-hills for his lost kingdom."
"Do not be so teasing, Jule," said his mother reprovingly. "There is certainly something very delightful in such an intimacy as Paula describes. I had such an experience myself, and the memory of that happy time is dear to me even now!"
"Oh, do tell us again about your dear friend Lili, mamma," exclaimed Paula, who had often heard her mother speak of this intimate friendship, and had indeed formed her own ideal upon that model. Lili also joined her sister in begging for the story, and even more urgently, for she knew nothing about this friend, although she bore the same name.
"Was not I named for her, mamma?" she asked, and her mother assented. "You all know the long manufactory under the hill," continued Mrs. Birkenfeld, "with the large house surrounded by a beautiful garden. Lili, my friend, lived there, and I remember very well the first time I ever saw her.
"I was about six years old, and I was playing one day in the parsonage garden with my simple dolls, which I set up on flat stones, that I always collected for seats for my children, whenever and wherever I found them. For I had no such outfit for my dolls as you children have now, no sofas and chairs and other furniture. You all know that your grandfather was the pastor in Tannenburg, and we led a very simple life at the parsonage. My playmates, two of the neighbors' children, were standing as usual by me and staring at me while I played, without saying one word. They never seemed to take the interest in my plays that I thought they deserved. They stood and looked at me with their big eyes, no matter what I did, and it was very annoying to me.
"Well, this evening, I was sitting there, on the ground, with my dolls all placed in a circle, when a lady came into the garden and asked to see my father. Before I could reply, a child whom she was leading by the hand, came running to my side, squatted down by me, and began to examine everything. I had so arranged my stones that each flat one had another stuck into the ground edgewise behind it, so that the doll could be placed leaning back against it as if it were a chair. The child was delighted with this arrangement, and joined in my play at once with the liveliest interest, while on my side I was so charmed with the little stranger's looks and ways, with her pretty floating curls and her sweet voice that I forgot everything else, and looked on bewitched, while she made the dolls say and do all sorts of things that I had never thought of before. I was quite startled when the lady again asked where she could find my father.
"From that day forth Lili and I were inseparable friends, and a rich and happy life was opened to me in her lovely home, such as I had never known nor thought of. I shall never forget the delightful, untroubled days which I spent in that beautiful house. I was almost as much loved and petted as if I had been Lili's own sister. Her parents had come from North Germany. Her father had been induced to buy the factory by the advice of an acquaintance, and they expected to remain permanently in our neighborhood. Lili was an only child, and having been hitherto without companionship of her own age, she clung to me very closely, and I returned her affection with equal fervor.