At this moment Louise, who had been looking for her mother, approached the balcony; she saw Jacobi's action and heard his words. She withdrew quickly, as if she had been stung by a serpent.
From this time a great change was more and more perceptible in her. Silent, shy, and very pale, she moved about like a dreaming person in the merry circle at Axelholm, and willingly agreed to her mother's proposal to shorten her stay at this place.
Jacobi, who was as much astonished as sorry at Louise's sudden unfriendliness towards him, began to think the place was somehow bewitched, and wished more than once to leave it.
A FAMILY PICTURE
From 'The Home'
The family is assembled in the library; tea is just finished. Louise, at the pressing request of Gabrielle and Petrea, lays out the cards in order to tell the sisters their fortune. The Candidate seats himself beside her, and seems to have made up his mind to be a little more cheerful. But then "the object" looks more like a cathedral than ever. The Landed Proprietor enters, bows, blows his nose, and kisses the hand of his "gracious aunt."
Landed Proprietor--Very cold this evening; I think we shall have frost.
Elise--It is a miserable spring; we have just read a melancholy account of the famine in the northern provinces; these years of dearth are truly unfortunate.