"Half an hour afterward, Isabella Pfannenschmidt came in with Susanna, whose eyes were red with weeping, and hair dishevelled. Isabella led her to Anna Maria, and Susanna made a motion as if to take her hand, but her own fell to her side again, and so, for a moment, the two girls, so unlike, stood opposite each other. Anna Maria had turned pale, to her very lips; then she put her arm about Susanna's delicate shoulders, and drew her to herself. But Susanna slid to the floor, and, sobbing, embraced her knees; it seemed as if she wished to ask forgiveness for a heavy offence, but not a word passed her lips. She only looked up at Anna Maria, with an expression which I shall never forget my life long, she seemed so true in those few moments. But before Anna Maria could stoop to raise the girl, Isabella had already pulled her up with the sharp, quick words: 'Susanna, be sensible!'
"Did the old woman consider prostration before the sister of the future husband too much devotion, or did she fear that thereby her darling was subordinating herself, once for all, to the sister's strict régime? I could not decide at the time; I did not know till later that this moment was a fearful crisis in Susanna's heart.
"The next three days passed quietly. Anna Maria had given Isabella a little room next Susanna's, had told her Klaus's plans for his wedding; and the old woman agreed to all the arrangements without a word of opposition, but without showing any joy either. The sewing for the trousseau was to be begun immediately after the harvest festival. Isabella had arranged a cushion for lace-making, and under her thin, skilful fingers grew filmy lace of the finest thread—'for the wedding toilet!' she said softly to me.
"Susanna's manner was quite altered; she unsociably avoided not only our company, but Isa's as well. Meanwhile the old woman seemed little concerned that her darling ran about half the day in the wood and garden, looked pale, and ate little or nothing, and now and then started up impetuously from her quiet, absorbed state, looking about with terrified eyes. 'That is the way with people in love,' she would say in excuse, with a peculiar smile, if I worried about Susanna's pale looks.
"In a few days there came a letter from Klaus for Susanna. I went up-stairs to give it to her. The first love-letter, a wonder in every girl's life! With beating heart it is opened, read in the most secret corner, kissed a thousand times, and kept forever. After long years there still rises from such a yellow, crumpled paper a faint odor of roses; a blush flits over the wrinkled cheeks, the dimmest eyes shine once more in recollection of the hour when they first fell on those lines. I was in quite a festive mood. What might not be enclosed in that blue envelope? All the love, all the trust, all the true, noble sentiment that could come only from such a heart as Klaus's! And all this fell like a golden rain into the lap of the little vagabond girl.
"I opened her door and looked in. Isabella sat, making lace, at the open window. Susanna lay on the sofa, her head buried in the cushions, apparently dreaming. The golden autumn sun streamed in through the trees, which were already becoming less shady, and played upon the inlaid floor, and Susanna's little kitten, with a blue ribbon around its neck, was jumping nimbly about after the bright, moving flecks.
"'Susanna, a letter from Klaus!' I cried, going to the sofa.
"She started up, and stared at me with frightened eyes, but she did not reach out for the letter in eager haste; her little hand made rather an averting gesture. Isabella, on the other hand, was standing beside me in an instant. 'A letter from the lover, Susanna!' she cried, cheerfully. 'Well, well, before I would be so affected! Quick, take and read it!' The words had a certain harsh sound, and Susanna seized the letter, took her straw hat from the nearest chair, and slipped out of the door; but it was not the joyous haste of anticipation, it looked rather like a speedy escape from Isa's sharp eyes.
"'A strange child, Fräulein Rosamond,' said the old woman, smiling and shaking her head. 'She is different from others, God bless her!' Then she began to rummage in Susanna's bureau, and brought out a little portfolio, from which she took a sheet of gilt-edged paper, with a bird-of-paradise with outstretched wings, sitting on a rose, on the upper left-hand corner, and arranged blotter, pen, and ink-stand. 'She will want to write immediately, when she has read the letter,' she explained, 'and a first love-letter like that is not easy, for one dips in the pen a hundred times, and still what one would like to say does not come.'
"I went away with the thought that Susanna would know well enough what to write. When the heart speaks, the pen is easily guided. Anna Maria had a great deal to do on this day; the animals were to be killed for the harvest festival. In the housekeeping rooms a restless activity reigned. Marieken was required to help, as on all such occasions, and Brockelmann had poured the flour to be used in cooking for the festival into a great tray in the baking-room. Anna Maria was in the storeroom; I found her sitting on a great sugar-firkin, with a slate in her hands; at her feet lay the scales with different weights, and Brockelmann was just bringing great bowls of raisins and sugar to be weighed for the cakes. Anna Maria wore, as usual, her great white housekeeping apron over her simple dress; her fair hair lay, smooth as a mirror, in luxuriant plaits on her beautifully shaped head; her sleeves, being pushed up a little, exposed her white arms; not a blemish on the whole appearance, from the lace-trimmed mull kerchief about her shoulders to the shapely foot in the little laced shoe. Would Susanna ever practise household duties thus?