After a pause, however, Annele said--"If that tiresome rain would only
cease, then, Lenz, we would go out driving together at once."

"I should, indeed, enjoy being with you alone under God's spacious sky.
The house seems too confined for my sense of happiness. Annele, we
would drive to the town."

"Wherever you like."

Presently Lenz said again:--"I am very glad my 'Magic Flute' was so
safely packed, for I should so grieve if it was injured."

"That is very needless anxiety," said the mother. "The thing is now
sold, and of course the purchaser runs all risks."

"No, mother, that's not at all the case. I understand my Lenz better.
He is attached to a work that cost him so much anxiety, and he would
have been glad never to have parted with it. If one has passed days and
nights, month after month, engrossed with one object, it would be very
distressing to know that it was injured."

"Yes, dear Annele; you are indeed my own!" cried Lenz, joyfully. How
well and thoroughly this excellent girl understood his feelings and
explained them!

The mother chided them playfully:--"It's no good talking to you lovers;
anyone who is not in love, is sure to be wrong in your eyes." She went
in and out, for Lenz had begged that, at all events at first, Annele
might be released from her attendance in the public room. "I am not
jealous," said he, "far from it; but I should like to intercept every
look you cast on others, for they all belong to me, and me only."

One afternoon the rain ceased for an hour. Lenz did not desist from
urging Annele, till she consented to go with him to his own house. "I
feel as if everything there was expecting you. All the stores, and
presses, and china, and other things that you will like to see."

Annele resisted for some time, and at last said--"My mother must go
too."

The old lady was very speedily equipped. They went through the village.
Every one greeted them. They had scarcely gone a hundred steps when
Annele complained--"What a horrid footpath, Lenz--it is so heavy and
deep. You must repair it thoroughly. But I'll tell you what would be
better: you must make a carriage road, so that people may be able to
drive up to our door."

"That would be difficult," answered Lenz: "it would cost a large sum of
money, and I should have to buy the ground. Do you see? Up there from
the hazel hedge the meadow is my own, and I require no carriage road
for my business. You know well, Annele dear, that I woul