When he entered the little red parlor, she was standing before the table at which she appeared to have been writing, and came forward to receive him with the frankest cordiality, as if he were an old acquaintance who had been long expected. The repellant coldness had vanished from her face, only a certain look of abstraction frequently recalled her former expression. She thanked him for having kept his promise and even brought her something new again. "But," she added, "I must not give you any farther trouble, especially if you continue to act as you did the first time, and leave the books at the outer door. You can surely make a better use of your time, than in running errands for a stranger, and I cannot promise you that a closer acquaintance will repay you for your trouble."
He answered with a few courteous words that betrayed none of the thoughts passing in his mind. Her presence had again produced so strange an impression, that he needed a short time to regain his composure. To-day, in her simple dress of crimson silk, with her hair wrapped in braids around her head and again utterly devoid of ornament, she seemed even more bewitching than when he first saw her. Yet there was a timidity almost bordering upon sadness in her voice and movements, that was contagious and overawed him more than her former careless ease.
"You would certainly have gone away to-day too, if I had not expressly invited you in," said she. "But it would not have required so much discretion to convince me that you are an exception to the usual rule. I saw in the first fifteen minutes of our acquaintance, that you were not like other men, from whose importunity it is difficult for a solitary girl to protect herself. That is why I am glad to see you again and thank you in person. I live so entirely alone, and although it is my own wish, the days are long and the necessity of hearing some voice except the twittering of the birds and the meaningless remarks of the servants, soon forces itself upon one. Besides, we like to discuss what we have read. To be sure--" she added hesitatingly, tapping the book that lay beside her portfolio with her rosy finger--"to speak of what you have lately brought me--"
"What have you read?"
"A great many of the poems; I was familiar with almost all from seeing them in collections, some even when I was at school. But in reading them together I now realize their beauty, at least so far as I understand them. But--Werther--you will scarcely believe that although I am twenty-one this is the first time I have read it."
"What an enviable person!"
"How so?"
"I devoured it at fifteen, when I was far too young and verdant to enjoy that most beautiful and mature of all the works ever written for young people."
"Perhaps I'm already too old," she said blushing, "or still too young. For--it will seem very foolish and perhaps incomprehensible to you: I had some difficulty in getting through it.
"That is," she hastily corrected herself, "I found certain things wonderfully beautiful, the spirit, the clearness, the lofty, melancholy thoughts, and what a living thing nature seems to become--I have copied many passages to read again. But the whole, the work itself--you will surely think me childish or heartless, if I confess that I was not in the least affected when Werther shot himself."