readfully sure, that if
her aunt knew of it she would be very angry indeed--much, much angrier
than she was before. Letty rolled on her bed in torments; for the
discouragement administered to Klutz had been in the form of poetry, and
poetry written on her aunt's notepaper, and purporting to come from her.
She had meant so well, and what had she done? When no answer came by
return to his poem hidden in the wallflowers, he had refused to believe
that the bouquet had reached its destination. "There has been
treachery," he cried; "you have played me false." And he seemed to fold
up with affliction.

"I gave it to her all right. She hasn't found the letter yet," said
Letty, trying to comfort, and astonished by the loudness of his grief.
"It's all right--you wait a bit. She liked the flowers awfully, and
kissed them."

"Poor young lover," she thought romantically, "his heart must not bleed
too much. Aunt Anna, if she ever does find the letter, will only send
him a rude answer. I will answer it for her, and gently discourage him."
For if the words that proceeded from Letty's mouth were inelegant, her
thoughts, whenever they dwelt on either Mr. Jessup or Herr Klutz, were
invariably clothed in the tender language of sentiment.

And she had sat up till very late, composing a poem whose mission was
both to discourage and console. It cost her infinite pains, but when it
was finished she felt that it had been worth them all. She copied it out
in capital letters on Anna's notepaper, folded it up carefully, and tied
it with one of her own hair-ribbons to a little bunch of
lilies-of-the-valley she had gathered for the purpose in the forest.

This was the poem:--

It is a matter of regret
That circumstances won't
Allow me to call thee my pet,
But as it is they don't.

For why? My many years forbid,
And likewise thy position.
So take advice, and strive amid
Thy tears for meek submission.

ANNA.

And this poem was, at that very moment, as she well knew, in Herr
Klutz's waistcoat pocket.

CHAPTER XXII

The ordinary young man, German or otherwise, hungrily emerging from
boyhood into a toothsome world made to be eaten, cures himself of his
appetite by indulging it till he is ill, and then on a firm foundation
of his own foolish corpse, or, as the poet puts it, of his dead self,
begins to build up the better things of his later years.

Klutz was an