out
too much in the fearful heat yesterday,' she replied coldly. 'However,
as you wish; I will leave it entirely to you to decide what occupation
is most fitting for Susanna Mattoni.'

"'Great heavens! Anna Maria, do you not understand?' Klaus rejoined,
almost imploringly. 'Look at the girl: she is delicate and accustomed to
the easy life of a large city, never to a regular life. I beg you not to
take it amiss, it is my opinion and----'

"'I am sorry that I have made such a mistake,' Anna Maria interrupted,
icily. 'I have tried to do my best for this unfortunate child, who has
grown up in most wretched circumstances. I wanted to make a capable,
housewifely maiden of her, but I see myself that such miserable comedian
blood is not to be improved, and I ask you now only for one thing----'

"She broke off. What would come now? I looked about me in horror to see
if any one were listening. But Marieken was clattering about with her
pots and pans in the kitchen, and the children were playing before the
outside door.

"'That you will not require me to endure this frivolous creature, this
frippery and finery, this trifling, flighty being. I have an unspeakable
aversion to her,' she concluded.

"'So that is your confession of faith, Anna Maria?' asked Klaus, and his
voice sounded angry. 'I tell you Susanna Mattoni remains here in the
family. I will have it, for a sacred promise binds me, and I hope that
you will never let her feel what you think of her. Her light-mindedness,
her unsteadiness, and all the faults which you have just cited, cannot
be laid to her charge, for from her youth up she has never learned to
recognize them as faults. Of frivolity, moreover, I have no evidences,
for a couple of bonbons do not seem to me sufficient proof.'

"'I cannot act contrary to my convictions,' returned Anna Maria, 'and if
I am no longer to educate Susanna as I think well for her, you had
better find another place for her.'

"I had sprung up and laid hold of the door-handle; for Heaven's sake!
there would be a quarrel. But the storm had already drawn near.

"'Susanna is to remain, I tell you!' thundered Klaus. 'Do you quite
forget who is master of the house? It appears to me I have let you go on
for years in an immeasurable error, in letting you govern uncontrolled,
and assenting to all your arrangements. It is time for you to remember
whose place it is to decide matters at Buetze.'

"Merciful Heaven! My knees trembled; how was