"P. S. It would be dishonesty in me to suppress poor Lottchen's love: she asked after you the very first thing, with a charming little air of melancholy; which, however, did not prevent her dancing every dance, and eating a vielliebchen at supper with the Burgermeister's son. Alas! they are all alike!--Youth is given to folly; and even age----!"
Here came a long dash of the pen, which Walter sat looking at, without moving for half an hour. Only when his landlady came in to ask him whether he would have his lamp, he stared at her, shook his head, and carefully putting away the letter in his pocket, he went downstairs, and away towards a distant quarter of the town, to a modest little wine-house, where he was wont to meet his comrades once a week, to enjoy a sociable evening.
When he came home about twelve o'clock, his landlady heard him singing a snatch of a student song as he walked up stairs--a very unusual circumstance.
"What can have made him so jolly to-night, I wonder?" she said to herself as she pulled the bed clothes over her ears; "he must have had very good news from home.--This is the first letter he ever got, that made him go to bed singing!"