ication--our progress, which in truth was very leisurely, seemed to
astound her. In her eyes, we were a pair of glacial prodigies, cold,
proud, and preternatural.

The young Countess _was_ a little proud, a little fastidious: and
perhaps, with her native delicacy and beauty, she had a right to these
feelings; but I think it was a total mistake to ascribe them to me. I
never evaded the morning salute, which Paulina would slip when she
could; nor was a certain little manner of still disdain a weapon known
in my armoury of defence; whereas, Paulina always kept it clear, fine,
and bright, and any rough German sally called forth at once its steelly
glisten.

Honest Anna Braun, in some measure, felt this difference; and while she
half-feared, half-worshipped Paulina, as a sort of dainty nymph--an
Undine--she took refuge with me, as a being all mortal, and of easier
mood.

A book we liked well to read and translate was Schiller's Ballads;
Paulina soon learned to read them beautifully; the Fraeulein would
listen to her with a broad smile of pleasure, and say her voice sounded
like music. She translated them, too, with a facile flow of language,
and in a strain of kindred and poetic fervour: her cheek would flush,
her lips tremblingly smile, her beauteous eyes kindle or melt as she
went on. She learnt the best by heart, and would often recite them when
we were alone together. One she liked well was "Des Maedchens Klage:"
that is, she liked well to repeat the words, she found plaintive melody
in the sound; the sense she would criticise. She murmured, as we sat
over the fire one evening:--

Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zurueck,
Ich habe genossen das irdische Glueck,
Ich habe gelebt und geliebet!

"Lived and loved!" said she, "is that the summit of earthly happiness,
the end of life--to love? I don't think it is. It may be the extreme of
mortal misery, it may be sheer waste of time, and fruitless torture of
feeling. If Schiller had said to _be_ loved, he might have come nearer
the truth. Is not that another thing, Lucy, to be loved?"

"I suppose it may be: but why consider the subject? What is love to
you? What do you know about it?"

She crimsoned, half in irritation, half in shame.

"Now, Lucy," she said, "I won't take that from you. It may be well for
papa to look on me as a baby: I rather prefer that he should thus view
me; but _you_ know and shall learn to acknowledge that I am verging on
my nineteenth year."