rbors, its flower-sprinkled grass-plots; but it was pleasant
and home-like, as it is to-day.

"I followed a shady path which I knew would bring me to the side of the
house, but all at once I stopped short. I could not be deceived; that
was Susanna's ringing laugh, floating like the note of a nightingale
through the shrubbery. Susanna in the garden and Susanna laughing? I
walked on and went up on a little knoll surrounded by old lindens; in
the middle was a Flora on a stone pedestal; monthly roses were blooming
in the flower-beds, mingling their fragrance with that of the
mignonette. At one side was a group of pretty garden furniture, and in
one of the seats was Susanna, leaning back and looking with a smile of
delight at the spray of roses which Stuermer had just offered her.

"He stood in front of her, his arm still in a sling, and looked down at
her. She had evidently made her toilet with the greatest care; the time
at Isa's sick-bed had not passed unused, it seemed. She still wore a
black dress, but her white neck gleamed beneath a quantity of delicate
black lace, and filmy lace also fell over her arms; the fichu knotted
below her bosom was held together by a pale rose, and there was also a
rose in her hair; Susanna Mattoni looked charming in her half-Spanish
costume. And yet if, with disorderly hair and careless toilet, and,
instead of the lace, one of Anna Maria's aprons, I had found her at
Isa's bed, could I have detected in her face a single sign of the fearful
night before, I would have thrown my arms about the child and said:
'Come, Susanna, my little Susanna, your refuge is at Buetze.' But now? But
thus?

"My heart seemed almost paralyzed. In another moment I was standing by
Susanna, and was able to say pleasantly that I had come to take her
home.

"Stuermer drew my hand to his lips, much pleased, 'Ah! my dearest, best
Aunt Rosamond, again at Dambitz at last," he cried. Susanna stood as if
petrified by my unexpected appearance. 'Well, my child,' I said to her,
as Stuermer, after pushing up a chair for me, went into the castle; 'how
is your Isa? She is quite well again, is she?'

"Susanna shook her head. 'No,' she replied, 'Isa is still very weak.'

"'Who takes care of her then?' I asked, sharply.

"'Herr von Stuermer has engaged a woman to nurse her,' she informed me,
'who probably understands it better than I.'

"'And you were on the point of returning to Buetze, were you not?' I
asked, severely.