"Anna Maria told me about it later, years afterward. Indeed, there was no slight amount of pride in that little head.
"Anna Maria began the practical education with the thoroughness peculiar to her in everything. With her iron constitution, her need of bodily activity, she had no suspicion that there were people in the world for whom such activity might be too much. Susanna had to go through kitchen and cellar, Susanna was initiated into the mysteries of the great washing, and Susanna drove with her, afternoons, in the burning heat into the fields, in order to explore the agricultural botany. Anna Maria's face showed a glimmer of happiness; she now had some one to whom she was indispensable, so she thought.
"And Klaus? Klaus had never in his life sat so constantly in his room as now; he went into the garden-parlor seldom or never, and only at mealtimes came to look into the sitting-room or out on the terrace. And then his eyes would rest on Susanna with a strange expression, anxiously and compassionately it seemed to me. He said not a word against Anna Maria's management.
"'Aunt Rosamond,' the latter said sadly to me one day, 'I fear Susanna's being here is a burden to Klaus; he is quiet, depressed, and not at all as he used to be.'
"'Why that cause, Anna Maria?' said I. 'Klaus does seem out of humor, that is true, but may it not be something else? Farmers have a new cause for vexation every day, and are never at a loss for one.'
"'Ah, no, Aunt Rosamond!' she replied. 'There has not been the prospect of such a harvest for years; it is a pleasure to go through the fields.'
"And Susanna, the breath of whose life was laughing? She wandered about like a dreamer. How often, when she sat opposite me in the sewing-room, her hands dropped in her lap, and she went to sleep, like an overweary child. And I let her sleep, for on the pale little face the marks of the unwonted manner of life were only too perceptible. Once Klaus came into the room, as she sat there, fallen asleep, like little Princess Domröschen, only, instead of the spindle, the netting-needle in her hand. He came nearer on tip-toe, and looked at her, his arms at his sides. Then he asked softly:
"'Do you not think she looks wretchedly, aunt?'
"'The altered mode of life, Klaus,' I answered, 'the strange food, the——'
"'Say the over-exertion, aunt,' he broke in; 'that would be nearer the truth. Poor little one!'