"What a pretty old handwriting," he said. "See, Marie!"
She nodded. "One can make quite a picture of the writer from that—small, delicate, and good, as loving as the first words sound."
"Yes," he replied, "she was good and kind. I remember her so distinctly yet. She used to give me sugarplums and colored pictures, and at Christmas she used to come as Knecht Ruprecht, and I should certainly have been frightened if I had not recognized Aunt Rosamond by her voice and limp."
"Ah, but please read, Klaus," begged the young wife impatiently; and he began obediently:
"My dear Anna Maria has driven away again with little Klaus——"
"That is you!" interrupted the young wife, laughing.
He nodded; his fine eyes gleamed softly. "But now be still," he said; "for Aunt Rosamond surely never thought such a disturber of the peace would ever put her nose in here."
"You bad man! Give me a kiss for that!"
"That, too?" he sighed comically. "There, but be quiet now!" And he began again:
"My dear Anna Maria has driven away again with little Klaus. It has become very quiet at Bütze, not a sound in the great house; even Brockelmann is no longer heard, for since last winter she has taken to wearing felt slippers. All the rooms down-stairs are shut up, and it is melancholy. Anna Maria consoles me, to be sure, by saying that there will be life enough here again when the child has grown large; but, dear me, by that time I shall have long been lying in the garden yonder! Oh, I wish I might live to hear merry voices ringing again through the house at Bütze, and see the rooms down-stairs occupied; but I do not believe it possible. Well, I must not allow myself to be overpowered by the loneliness and tediousness about me; I sit at my desk and will try to narrate the late events here, in regular order. So much has happened here; the stories rush to my mind all confused, but I should like to recall the past in proper order.