men in this respect, that he never could find anything, and grew
so vexed in hunting, that from very irritation he found nothing. At the
door stood the farm inspector and a little old man who was well known at
Buetze, Isaac Aron the Jew. He made a deep reverence to Anna Maria, and
said contentedly: "Now matters will be brought into good shape; the
gracious Fraeulein knows the place of everything in the whole house."

Anna Maria paid no attention to this, but, going to the desk,
confidently put her hand into a drawer, and gave a little packet of
papers to her brother. "There, Klaus," said she, looking with a smile in
his flushed face, "why did you not call me at once?"

The troubled face grew bright. "Upon my word, Anna Maria," he cried
gayly, "these are stupid things; I have had that package in my hands
twenty times at least. A thousand thanks! I say again and again, Anna
Maria, what would become of me without you?"

The smile suddenly disappeared from her face, and she looked
thoughtfully at the stately figure of her brother, who had stepped up to
the men and was negotiating with them. The words fell on her ears as in
a dream, and quite mechanically she took up her train and walked out of
the room. As she was about to close the door, her brother called after
her: "Anna Maria, shall I meet you by and by in the sitting-room? The
gardener wants to talk with us about the new work in the wood."

She had no idea, as she stood outside, whether or not she had answered
him; then she sat down in her room, and her eyes wandered about the
familiar spot and rested at length on her brother's portrait. But she
saw it not; in her mind was another picture, another man's head. The
red-tiled roof of Dambitz Manor rose before her eyes, and over him and
her the brown, budding branches of the linden-walk in the Dambitz garden
fluttered and beat in the damp spring air, and at their feet long rows
of snow-drops bloomed and shook their little white heads.

"Anna Maria," he had called her, "Anna Maria," as in her childhood. She
started up, as if awakening from a long, deep dream. Ah, no! it was
true; scarcely an hour ago he had spoken thus to her, and Anna Maria von
Hegewitz had stood before him as if under a spell.

What else had he said? She knew no longer, only the words "Anna Maria"
sounded to her very soul; and as on that St. Martin's Eve she had put
her hands in his, and he had drawn her close to him--only one short
moment, she scar