the
inlaid floor, and Susanna's little kitten, with a blue ribbon around its
neck, was jumping nimbly about after the bright, moving flecks.

"'Susanna, a letter from Klaus!' I cried, going to the sofa.

"She started up, and stared at me with frightened eyes, but she did not
reach out for the letter in eager haste; her little hand made rather an
averting gesture. Isabella, on the other hand, was standing beside me in
an instant. 'A letter from the lover, Susanna!' she cried, cheerfully.
'Well, well, before I would be so affected! Quick, take and read it!'
The words had a certain harsh sound, and Susanna seized the letter, took
her straw hat from the nearest chair, and slipped out of the door; but
it was not the joyous haste of anticipation, it looked rather like a
speedy escape from Isa's sharp eyes.

"'A strange child, Fraeulein Rosamond,' said the old woman, smiling and
shaking her head. 'She is different from others, God bless her!' Then
she began to rummage in Susanna's bureau, and brought out a little
portfolio, from which she took a sheet of gilt-edged paper, with a
bird-of-paradise with outstretched wings, sitting on a rose, on the
upper left-hand corner, and arranged blotter, pen, and ink-stand. 'She
will want to write immediately, when she has read the letter,' she
explained, 'and a first love-letter like that is not easy, for one dips
in the pen a hundred times, and still what one would like to say does
not come.'

"I went away with the thought that Susanna would know well enough what
to write. When the heart speaks, the pen is easily guided. Anna Maria
had a great deal to do on this day; the animals were to be killed for
the harvest festival. In the housekeeping rooms a restless activity
reigned. Marieken was required to help, as on all such occasions, and
Brockelmann had poured the flour to be used in cooking for the festival
into a great tray in the baking-room. Anna Maria was in the storeroom;
I found her sitting on a great sugar-firkin, with a slate in her hands;
at her feet lay the scales with different weights, and Brockelmann was
just bringing great bowls of raisins and sugar to be weighed for the
cakes. Anna Maria wore, as usual, her great white housekeeping apron
over her simple dress; her fair hair lay, smooth as a mirror, in
luxuriant plaits on her beautifully shaped head; her sleeves, being
pushed up a little, exposed her white arms; not a blemish on the whole
appearance, from the lace-trimme