Anna Maria rose quickly and went to the window, as if to frighten away unpleasant thoughts; the soft, mild spring air blew toward her and reminded her of the most unhappy hour of her life, and again she turned and walked quickly through the room. Then her foot struck against something, and she saw the cradle, lightly rocking in front of her—the heavy, gayly painted old cradle in which the Hegewitzes had had their first slumber for more than two hundred years—Klaus too, and she too. And Anna Maria knelt down and threw her arms about the little rocking cradle, and kissed the glaring painted roses and cherubs, and a few bitter tears flowed from under her lashes, the first that she had shed since that day.
"Why did I, too, have to lie there in the cradle? It might have been so different, so much better," she thought. "Poor thing, you must decay and fall to dust here, and at last irreverent hands will take you and throw you into the fire. Poor Klaus! For my sake!" And almost tenderly she wiped the dust from the arabesques on the back, and shook up the little yellow pillows.
Just then came the sound of a quick, manly step in the passage, and before Anna Maria had time to rise, Klaus stood in the open door.
"Do I find you here?" he asked in astonishment, and at first laughing, then more serious, he looked at Anna Maria, who rose and came toward him.
"I wanted to let some fresh air in here, and found our old cradle, Klaus," she said quietly.
"Yes, Anna Maria—but you have been crying," he rejoined.
"Oh, I was only thinking that it was quite unnecessary that the poor thing should have been hunted up again for me!" The bitterness of her heart pressed unconsciously to her lips to-day.
"Anna Maria! What puts such thoughts into your head?" asked Klaus von Hegewitz, in amazement. And drawing his sister to him, he stroked her hair lovingly. "What should I do without you?"
She made a slight convulsive movement, and freed herself from his arms.
"But, listen, sister," he continued, "I know whence such feelings come. You must become low-spirited in this old nest; you have no companions of your own age, you withdraw more and more from every youthful pleasure, and, although you think you can do without these things, you will have to pay for it some day."