order to
remain alone with you has given me pleasure for many days, and this
precisely because I love you, Leonore! yes, because I feel that I could
love you better than all the rest! Nay, do not shake your head--it is
so. One cannot help one's feelings."

"But why should you love me?" argued the poor girl; "I am, indeed, so
little amiable, nobody can endure me, nobody has pleasure in me; I would
willingly die. Ah! I often think it would be so beautiful to die!"

"How can you talk so, Leonore?" said her sister; "it is not right! Would
you wish such horrible grief to papa and mamma, and me, and all of us?"

"Ah!" said Leonore, "you and the sisters would soon comfort yourselves.
Mamma does not love me as much as any of you others; nor papa either.
Ottil R. said the other day that everybody talked of it--that I was
beloved neither by father nor mother."

"Fie!" exclaimed Eva, "that was wicked and unjust of Ottil. I am quite
certain that our parents love us all alike. Have you ever observed that
they unjustly make any difference between us?"

"That I never have," said Leonore; "they are too good and perfect for
that. But, do you think I have not observed with how different an
expression my father regards me to that with which he looks on you or
Louise? Do you think that I do not feel how cold, and at times
constrained, is the kiss which my mother gives me, to the two, the
three, yes, the many, which, out of the fulness of her heart, she gives
to you or to Gabriele? But I do not complain of injustice. I see very
well that it cannot be otherwise. Nature has made me so disagreeable,
that it is not possible people can bear me. Ah! fortunate indeed are
they who possess an agreeable exterior! They win the good-will of people
if they only show themselves. It is so easy for them to be amiable, and
to be beloved! But difficult, very difficult is it for those who are
ill-favoured as I!"

"But, dear Leonore, I assure you, you are unjust towards yourself. Your
figure, for example, is very good; your eyes have something so
expressive, something at the same time so soft and so earnest; your hair
is fine, and is of a beautiful brown;--it would become you so if it were
better dressed; but wait awhile, when you are better I will help you to
do it, and then you shall see."

"And my mouth," said poor Leonore, "that goes from ear to ear, and my
nose is so flat and so long--how can you mend that?"

"Your mouth?" replied Eva, "why yes,