age in the great hall at the Seiffarts'
residence.

I have never forgotten those performances, and laugh now when I think of
the knight who shouted to his servant Kasperle, "Fear my thread!"
(Zwirn), when what he intended to say was, "Fear my anger!" (Zorn). Or of
that same Kasperle, when he gave his wife a tremendous drubbing with a
stake, and then inquired, "Want another ounce of unburned wood-ashes, my
darling?"

Paula was very fond of these farces. She was, however, from a child
rather a singular young creature, who did not by any means enjoy all the
amusements of her age. When grown, it was often with difficulty that our
mother persuaded her to attend a ball, while Martha's eyes sparkled
joyously when there was a dance in prospect; and yet the tall and slender
Paula looked extremely pretty in a ball dress.

Gay and active, indeed bold as a boy sometimes, so that she would lead in
taking the rather dangerous leap from a balcony of our high ground floor
into the garden, clever, and full of droll fancies, she dwelt much in her
own thoughts. Several volumes of her journal came to me after our
mother's death, and it is odd enough to find the thirteen-year-old girl
confessing that she likes no worldly pleasures, and yet, being a very
truthful child, she was only expressing a perfectly sincere feeling.

It was touching to read in the same confessions: "I was in a dreamy mood,
and they said I must be longing for something--Paul, no doubt. I did not
dispute it, for I really was longing for some one, though it was not a
boy, but our dead father." And Paula was only three years old when he
left us!

No one would have thought, who saw her delight when there were fireworks
in the Seiffarts' garden, or when in our own, with her curls and her gown
flying, her cheeks glowing, and her eyes flashing, she played with all
her heart at "catch" or "robber and princess," or, all animation and
interest, conducted a performance of our puppet-show, that she would
sometimes shun all noisy pleasure, that she longed with enthusiastic
piety for the Sunday churchgoing, and could plunge into meditation on
subjects that usually lie far from childish thoughts and feelings.

Yet who would fancy her thoughtless when she wrote in her journal: "Fie,
Paula! You have taken no trouble. Mother had a right to expect a better
report. However, to be happy, one must forget what cannot be altered."

In reality, she was not in the least "featherheaded." H