the Frau was just
coming out of the salon; she took him in with her, laughing, and said I
was to get the child.'

"Silently Anna Maria lifted him up from the carpet, where he had sat
playing, and with a kiss gave him to the old woman. 'There, now, go to
mamma and be good.'

"She then bent over her housekeeping book.

"'Will you not go down, Anna Maria?' I asked.

"She raised her head. 'Oh, aunt, I have something important to do now,
and--he will not miss me. He will be here again often,' she added. And a
faint, traitorous blush tinged her face. 'I think they still love each
other.'

"I shook my head. 'Ah, Anna Maria, she still wears her widow's cap!'

"'It will come, nevertheless,' whispered the girl, and an expression
full of anguish lay about her mouth; 'and then she will go away with
him, and will take the child with her, and at last the cup of my
unhappiness will be full. Then I shall feel nothing any longer, no
longer call anything in the world _mine_, not even a miserable hope!'

"I was silent and looked at her sadly. How many hundred times I had said
to myself that this would come. I shuddered at the thought of an empty,
icy-cold future--poor Anna Maria!

"And it certainly was as Anna Maria had said. Stuermer came often,
Stuermer came every day. We sat together at coffee in the garden-parlor,
or on the terrace on warm summer evenings. Susanna had quite regained
her old happy disposition. Sometimes, too, a white rose shone out from
her dark curls, and her eyes laughed down over the garden, without a
thought of the grave there below. It seemed sometimes as if something
took hold of me, as if a dear, familiar voice said to me: 'So quickly am
I forgotten?'

"And Anna Maria would sit for hours with the child on her lap, and say
the word 'father' to him countless times, and rejoice like a child over
his first awkward attempts. She guided his first steps; she did not let
him out of her arms, but carried him about everywhere, all over the
house and in the garden. 'Perhaps he will retain a recollection,' said
she, 'and this is all his; he will live here some time, in his home, and
then he will be tall and strong like his father, and dear and good to
his old Aunt Anna Maria.'

"Was Stuermer really drawing nearer to Susanna? I could not bring myself
to perceive it, and then--it could not be announced yet, the year of
mourning had not expired. But perhaps she had her word already; he loved
her, had already loved