"If I only knew how to begin! I have already cut three goose-quills to pieces! I look out of the window, the trees are clad in the first green, the sky is blue, only a dark line of cloud rising over the barn yonder. It is warm and sultry, as before an approaching thunder-storm, and now another spring day rises before my eyes, and now I know.
"It was a ninth of May, just as damp and sultry as to-day. Anna Maria came in to me. My room was up-stairs here then, on the same story, the same big flowered furniture stood here, and I was the same infirm, limping old creature, only fresher and brighter; I laughed more than any one in the house in those days. I can see Anna Maria before me so distinctly, as she stood there by the spinet in her every-day gray dress, with a black taffeta apron over it, and the bunch of keys at her belt.
"'Aunt Rosamond, will you look at the room which I have been getting ready for the child?' she asked, and I rose, and limped along beside her down the hall as far as the large, dark room. I never could bear the room, and to-day, as I entered it, it oppressed me like a nightmare. To be sure, dazzling white pillows stood up beneath the green curtains of the canopy, and a spray of elder on the toilet-table sent its fragrance through the room; but neither this nor the sultry air which came in at the window could improve the damp, cold atmosphere, or convey any degree of comfort to the room.
"'You ought to have had it warmed, Anna Maria,' said I, with a little shiver, 'and had that unpleasant picture taken away.' And I pointed to the half-length portrait of a young woman looking boldly and saucily forth into the world, with a pair of sparkling black eyes, who was called in the family the 'Mischief-maker.' According to an old, half-forgotten story, she had come by her nickname from her black eyes having been the cause of a duel between two Hegewitz brothers, in which one was killed by his brother's hand. A Hegewitz herself, and lingering at Bütze on a visit, she had deliberately married another man. How, when, and where, it happened, the story did not tell; but her portrait had remained at Bütze, and hung from time immemorial in this room.
"'Ah! let the picture stay: the child does not know whom it represents,' replied Anna Maria. 'I think it is quite comfortable and pleasant here, Aunt Rosamond, with the view into the garden.'
"Anna Maria had, literally, no idea of comfort, so her remark did not surprise me. She lacked that charming feminine faculty of making all the surroundings pleasing with a few flowers or a bit of graceful drapery. 'The poor thing,' thought I, 'coming from Berlin—to this dreary solitude!'
"Anna Maria had suddenly turned around to me, and her face, usually so austere, was glowing with tenderness. 'Aunt Rosamond,' she said, 'do you know, I am really glad the little Susanna Mattoni is coming!'
"'And I am glad for you, Anna Maria,' I replied, 'for you need a friend.'
"'I need no friend,' she replied bluntly, 'and how could that young thing be a companion for me? She is a child, a poor orphaned child, in need of love, and I will—' She broke off, and a hot blush spread over her face.
"'You are still young yourself, Anna Maria,' I interposed, 'and I think she must be seventeen years old.'