to it, let
her become disused to it. Only think, when you want to rise early in the
morning!"

"He heard me not. 'Aunt,' said he, holding me fast by the hand, his
eyes shining so happily, 'is she not a good, charming little wife?'

"I smiled in his face. 'Very charming, Klaus!'

"'And who prophesied to me that I should be unhappy all my life, eh?' he
asked.

"'Oh, Klaus, not I, indeed!' I contradicted earnestly. 'If Anna Maria
had apprehensions, they were certainly not without foundation, and a
housewife Susanna will never be.'

"'No, she is not yet a German housewife,' he broke in, in a somewhat
disheartened manner, 'but she can be, and will be yet.'

"I nodded to him: 'Sleep well, Klaus!'

"'Is it not so?' he asked, holding me back.' You will write to Anna
Maria that we are happy with one another; you will tell her how good and
charming she is?'

"'Yes, my boy, and now, good-night.'

"Anna Maria's letters were brief and meagre; her handwriting very large
and angular, as it is to-day. She wrote me that she was very well there,
occupied a pair of pretty rooms, and was much with the abbess, who had
been a friend of her mother. 'But I miss activity,' she added; 'a life
on the sofa, in the company of stocking-knitting and books, is hateful
to me; that is not resting.' A greeting for Klaus and Susanna was added.

"I answered her, writing that Klaus worshipped his wife and was happy.

"'May God keep him thus!' she answered laconically. She was not to be
reached with that; she had no belief in a happiness with Susanna.

"Stuermer, who, as Anna Maria thought, was to come in April, was not yet
here. He was a migratory bird, only without the regularity of one."

CHAPTER XVIII.

"May came on in the country in all its glory; the trees blossomed and
the seeds sprouted, and Buetze lay as in a snowy sea. The sun laughed in
the sky, as Susanna walked through the trim garden-paths on Klaus's arm.
Now and then I saw her cross the court, with straw hat and parasol, in a
light summer dress, and go a little way into the fields to meet him. The
people stood still as she passed, the women and girls courtesied, the
men made as deep a bow to her as to the rest of us from the house, and
the children ran up to her in troops, and the sound of their 'Good-day,
gracious Frau,' and Susanna's clear, laughing voice came up to me; her
charms fairly bewitched everybody. Then she would return on her
husband's arm, a great bouquet