he girl, Isabella had already pulled her up with the
sharp, quick words: 'Susanna, be sensible!'

"Did the old woman consider prostration before the sister of the future
husband too much devotion, or did she fear that thereby her darling was
subordinating herself, once for all, to the sister's strict _regime_? I
could not decide at the time; I did not know till later that this moment
was a fearful crisis in Susanna's heart.

"The next three days passed quietly. Anna Maria had given Isabella a
little room next Susanna's, had told her Klaus's plans for his wedding;
and the old woman agreed to all the arrangements without a word of
opposition, but without showing any joy either. The sewing for the
trousseau was to be begun immediately after the harvest festival.
Isabella had arranged a cushion for lace-making, and under her thin,
skilful fingers grew filmy lace of the finest thread--'for the wedding
toilet!' she said softly to me.

"Susanna's manner was quite altered; she unsociably avoided not only our
company, but Isa's as well. Meanwhile the old woman seemed little
concerned that her darling ran about half the day in the wood and
garden, looked pale, and ate little or nothing, and now and then started
up impetuously from her quiet, absorbed state, looking about with
terrified eyes. 'That is the way with people in love,' she would say in
excuse, with a peculiar smile, if I worried about Susanna's pale looks.

"In a few days there came a letter from Klaus for Susanna. I went
up-stairs to give it to her. The first love-letter, a wonder in every
girl's life! With beating heart it is opened, read in the most secret
corner, kissed a thousand times, and kept forever. After long years
there still rises from such a yellow, crumpled paper a faint odor of
roses; a blush flits over the wrinkled cheeks, the dimmest eyes shine
once more in recollection of the hour when they first fell on those
lines. I was in quite a festive mood. What might not be enclosed in that
blue envelope? All the love, all the trust, all the true, noble
sentiment that could come only from such a heart as Klaus's! And all
this fell like a golden rain into the lap of the little vagabond girl.

"I opened her door and looked in. Isabella sat, making lace, at the open
window. Susanna lay on the sofa, her head buried in the cushions,
apparently dreaming. The golden autumn sun streamed in through the
trees, which were already becoming less shady, and played upon