nd-thou terms with one's things; and certainly nobody in
this world can be more so than Louise with hers.

"We are all of us now working most actively for the wedding, but still
our father does not look with altogether friendly eyes on an occasion
which will withdraw a daughter from his beloved circle. He would so
gladly keep us all with him, for which I rejoice and am grateful.
Apropos! we have a scheme for him which will make him happy in his old
age, and our mother also. You remember the great piece of building-land
overgrown with bushes, which the people had not understanding enough
either to build upon or to give up to us, this we intend--but we will
talk about it mouth to mouth. Petrea has infected us all, even 'our
eldest,' with her desire for great undertakings; and then--truly it is a
joy to be able to labour for the happiness of those who have laboured
for us so affectionately and unweariedly.

"Now something about friends and acquaintance.

"All friends and acquaintance ask much after you. Uncle Jeremias
wrangles because you do not come, all the time he breakfasts with us
(generally on Wednesday and Saturday mornings), and while he abuses our
rusks, but notwithstanding devours a great quantity of them. For some
time he has appeared to me to have become more amiable than formerly;
his temper is milder, his heart always was mild. He is the friend and
physician of all the poor. A short time ago he bought a little villa, a
mile distant from the city; it is to be the comfort of his age, and is
to be called 'The Old Man's Rose,'--does not that sound comfortable?

"Annette P. is very unhappy with her coarse sister-in-law. She does not
complain; but look, complexion, nay, even her whole being, indicate the
deepest discontent with life; we must attract her to us, and endeavour
to make her happier.

"Here comes Gabriele, and insists upon it that I should leave some room
for her scrawl. A bold request! But then who says no to her? Not I, and
therefore I must make a short ending.

"If a certain Baron Rutger L. be introduced to you when you return, do
not imagine that he is deranged, although he sometimes seems as if he
were so. He is the son of one of my father's friends; and as he is to be
educated by my father for a civil post, he is boarded in our family. He
is a kind of '_diamant brute_,' and requires polishing in more senses
than one; in the mean time I fancy his wild temper is in a fair way of
being tamed. On