"'You are right, Aunt Rosa,' she replied, a crimson flush spreading over her face. 'I will not let this trouble me to-day; I will rejoice, will be happy. Ah! aunt, I do not know, indeed, what that really is; I am such a stupid, dull being. Listen, last evening I could have opened my arms and embraced the whole world from happiness. I could not sleep, I walked about my room restlessly, and read his letter a hundred times; as long as my eye rested upon it I was calm, and when I had folded it up doubts came to me, such anxious, evil doubts, such as, "What if you have made a mistake? What if he has something to say to Aunt Rosamond which does not concern you at all?" And then it seemed to me as if I were sinking into a deep, black abyss, and there was nothing that I could hold on to, aunt. Oh! it was frightful, so empty, so cold, so dead! Dear Aunt Rosamond, do laugh me out of these foolish thoughts, scold me for a stupid girl; tell me how faint-hearted I am, that a doubt of Edwin's love should come to me! He does love me, Aunt Rosamond, does he not? One can never forget it when one has once loved a person with his whole heart. I know it; yes, Aunt Rosamond, I am a foolish, childish creature; do laugh me right out of it, please, please!'
"She had drawn me to the sofa as she spoke, and hidden her face on my shoulder. Amid laughing and crying the words came out, all self-consciousness was gone, that unapproachable harshness of her nature had disappeared, and she was now like any other girl expecting her lover. She trembled and sobbed, and wound her arms tightly about my neck—the proud, cold Anna Maria had become a happy child. What a fulness of love and resignation now gushed from her heart, now that happiness touched it! 'So do laugh me well out of it, aunt,' she said, again.
"I stroked her hair caressingly; how gladly would I have laughed her out of it! But in my soul, too, there were doubts, inexplicable doubts; and why? There was really no reasonable ground for them, no, no! Susanna might have denied the walk in the garden because the evening air was prohibited on account of her health; and just because she stood under the linden and waved her handkerchief—was that any proof? And I thought of my letter to Stürmer, and really had to laugh.
"'Anna Maria,' said I, 'I will laugh at you, but you must laugh back at me. Only think, yesterday I sent an announcement of the engagement to Stürmer; I could not keep it to myself any longer that Klaus is engaged.'
"She straightened up with a start.
"'Heavens, the papers! I forget everything. The banns—I must see to that first, aunt.'
"To-day the hours seemed to pass much more slowly than usual. Toward four o'clock I sat waiting at the window; my heartbeat as violently as Anna Maria's, perhaps. She, I knew, was down-stairs in her room, restless and anxious. Half-past four struck, five, and Stürmer was not yet here. Instead, Susanna came into my room and sat down opposite me; she had her kitten in her arms and began to play with it.
"I should have liked to send her away, but no suitable excuse occurred to me at that moment. It is fearful how slowly the minutes pass when one is counting them in anxious expectation; heavy as lead, each second seems to spin itself out to eternity, and one starts at every sound. No, that was a farm-wagon, now a horseman; ah! it is only the bailiff.
"Susanna felt my silence and restlessness painfully at any rate. 'Oh, it is fearfully tiresome in the country in winter!' she sighed. 'What can one do all day long?'
"'Have you written to Klaus yet?' I asked.