She looked up at him in astonishment, he had spoken so slowly and earnestly. Then he stroked her forehead, pressed his sister to him again, and then turned quietly to the corner-shelf and took down his favorite pipe.
"There, now we will make ourselves comfortable," said he. "Come, Anna Maria, 'Tante Voss' is very interesting to-day."
Anna Maria stood long at her bedroom window and looked at the drifting clouds of the night-sky. Now and then the moon peeped out, and tinged the edges of the clouds with silver light; as they sped in strange forms over her golden disk, there was a continual change in the fantastic shapes, but Anna Maria saw it not. Confused thoughts chased each other about in her brain, like the clouds above, and now and then, like the brilliant constellation, a bright look from the long-known dark eyes came before her mind. "It is the memory of childhood," she said to herself, "yes, the memory!"
Twelve o'clock struck from the church-tower near by, as, shivering with cold, she stepped back from the window. She heard hasty steps coming along the corridor; she knew it was Brockelmann going to bed. The next moment she had opened the door; she hardly knew herself first what she wanted, when the old woman was already crossing the threshold.
"You are not sleeping yet, Fräulein? Ah, it is well that you are still awake. I had a fine fright a little while ago. What do you think, Marieken Märtens, the crazy thing, tried to drown herself; a man from the village pulled her out of the pond."
Anna Maria had grown white as a corpse; she had to sit down on the edge of her bed, and her great eyes looked in sheer amazement at the old woman. "What for?" she asked hastily, and almost sharply.
"Indeed, Fräulein, for what else but because of the stupid affair with Gottlieb? You know what his mother is. Marieken did not dare go home all at once—there are mouths enough to feed: so her sweetheart took her home to his mother, and she told him he should not come to her with a girl whom the gracious Fräulein had dismissed, that he must not think of marrying the girl as long as she lived; you know, Fräulein, the old woman swears by the family here. And so the stupid thing took it into her head to go into the water."
Anna Maria looked silently before her, and her whole body shook as if she had a chill.
"Heavens, you are ill!" cried the old woman.