tell me briefly, how you came to this mad resolution, and then go to
bed and sleep all off."

"You must protect me," said Dorothea, "you must not refuse me shelter,
otherwise I must run in despair into the wide world, or madness will
drive me into a mill-pool."

"Calm yourself, child," said her friend soothingly; "you must of course
return home. But tell me: what has befallen you all of a sudden?"

"Only do not laugh," cried Dorothea, "keep serious, my good dear
friend, for I am in despair. This morning I let myself be persuaded,
from weakness, from emotion, they had celebrated my birthday so
unexpectedly, to promise to betroth myself this evening to Baron von
Wallen. This was now to take place, and that is why I have run away,
because I abhor him, because I cannot live any longer at home with my
sisters and my mother."

"I am well aware," replied her friend, "that you cannot love the Baron,
that injustice was often done you in the family; but this expression of
horror in you, as you seemed so used to every thing, is still
incomprehensible to me."

"I do not yet understand it myself," answered Dorothea; "I do not know
how I am to relate it to you. That I was not happy, you must of course
have seen, though I never said a word to you on the subject. Alas, the
origin of that dates itself from my beloved father's death. You know I was
scarcely thirteen years old when he died. O heaven, what a man! I could
not at that time estimate his value, but the older I grew, the more he
bloomed in my remembrance as the bright object of my love. That benign
gentle spirit, that cheerfulness, humanity, quiet piety, that delight in
nature and art, that active, admirable intellect--alas! and he was not
happy either! I saw, I observed it well, when I came to distinguish a
little, he was not happy in his marriage; he and my mother were too unlike
one another, they were often at variance with each other. He was then at
times deeply dejected, infinite sorrow would speak out of his fine dark
eyes, as he bent them silently to the ground. And now on a sudden he
was gone! He must have learnt and felt on the other side the grave how
my heart's love followed him. O my friend, there are moments of pain,
when nothing but the cold dull stupor into which our whole being sinks,
rescues us from frenzy and madness. So I grew up in pain and regret,
which no one shared, no one understood. And what an alteration took
place in the life of our family! Ins