"When Klaus and Anna Maria had gone, I stood still in the middle of the room and said aloud, with a fierce conviction: 'The two children have made an unpardonably stupid move; what will come of it?' And much came of it! If the succession of sorrow, tears, and bitter hours that followed Susanna Mattoni's little feet could have been foreseen on her arrival, Anna Maria would have given not only the old woman, but Susanna herself, no longer than twenty-four hours to stay in her house!
"I was still standing on the same spot when the door flew open, and Susanna's old companion entered. 'Gracious Fräulein,' she cried anxiously, 'do come; the child—she is weeping, she is ill, she will kill herself!'
"The excited creature wrung her hands, and her whole frame trembled. I limped across to the girl's room, again with the thought, 'What will come of it?' Susanna was sitting, half undressed, at the toilet-table, her dark hair falling loosely over a white dressing-sack; her face was buried in her hands, and she was crying. The old woman rushed up to her: 'Darling, the kind lady is here; she will be good to us, she will let me stay here, and will speak a good word to the Fräulein; please now, my lamb, she surely will.'
"Susanna Mattoni raised her head and dried the tears from her great eyes; when she saw me she sprang up, and again I felt the magical charm that surrounded the young creature. 'What is the matter, my child?' I asked tenderly.
"'You are very kind, Mademoiselle,' she answered; 'it is only the strangeness and the long journey.' And she shivered with cold.
"'Dress yourself quickly,' I advised her, 'there is a fire in the dining-room, and the warm supper will do you good.'
"The old woman seized a comb and drew it with evident pride through the beautiful hair, and waited on the Professor's young daughter as if she were really a princess. She talked meanwhile of her delicate constitution and her nerves. I quite forgot going, and at that stood still in amazement. Merciful Heaven! In old houses in the Mark 'nerves' were not yet the fashion. What would Anna Maria say, what would——?
"Anna Maria had spoken of having Susanna acquire the art of housekeeping, so that in the future she might help herself through life with her own hands. And here! a maid, nerves, the beauty of a grande dame with the little hands and feet of a child.
"And now the old woman took from the trunk a little black dress, evidently quite new, and trimmed with bows, flounces, and the Lord knows what! Over the shining white neck she laid a black gauze fichu, which she gracefully arranged on the bodice, and beneath the short skirts peeped two shoes laced up with silk ribbons, such as scarcely ever before glided over the old floors of Bütze Manor-house. Certainly the old woman understood her business. Susanna Mattoni was, as she stood there, the most charming girl I have ever seen, before or since, in my long life.
"'God help me, what will be the end of it?' I asked myself for the third time, as the old woman broke off a white spray of elder, and placed it, correctly and not without coquetry, in the fichu.