companion entered. 'Gracious Fraeulein,' she cried
anxiously, 'do come; the child--she is weeping, she is ill, she will
kill herself!'

"The excited creature wrung her hands, and her whole frame trembled. I
limped across to the girl's room, again with the thought, 'What will
come of it?' Susanna was sitting, half undressed, at the toilet-table,
her dark hair falling loosely over a white dressing-sack; her face was
buried in her hands, and she was crying. The old woman rushed up to her:
'Darling, the kind lady is here; she will be good to us, she will let me
stay here, and will speak a good word to the Fraeulein; please now, my
lamb, she surely will.'

"Susanna Mattoni raised her head and dried the tears from her great
eyes; when she saw me she sprang up, and again I felt the magical charm
that surrounded the young creature. 'What is the matter, my child?' I
asked tenderly.

"'You are very kind, Mademoiselle,' she answered; 'it is only the
strangeness and the long journey.' And she shivered with cold.

"'Dress yourself quickly,' I advised her, 'there is a fire in the
dining-room, and the warm supper will do you good.'

"The old woman seized a comb and drew it with evident pride through the
beautiful hair, and waited on the Professor's young daughter as if she
were really a princess. She talked meanwhile of her delicate
constitution and her nerves. I quite forgot going, and at that stood
still in amazement. Merciful Heaven! In old houses in the Mark 'nerves'
were not yet the fashion. What would Anna Maria say, what would----?

"Anna Maria had spoken of having Susanna acquire the art of
housekeeping, so that in the future she might help herself through life
with her own hands. And here! a maid, nerves, the beauty of a _grande
dame_ with the little hands and feet of a child.

"And now the old woman took from the trunk a little black dress,
evidently quite new, and trimmed with bows, flounces, and the Lord knows
what! Over the shining white neck she laid a black gauze fichu, which
she gracefully arranged on the bodice, and beneath the short skirts
peeped two shoes laced up with silk ribbons, such as scarcely ever
before glided over the old floors of Buetze Manor-house. Certainly the
old woman understood her business. Susanna Mattoni was, as she stood
there, the most charming girl I have ever seen, before or since, in my
long life.

"'God help me, what will be the end of it?' I asked myself for the third
time, as th