for eating
the cherries.

And at length Fritz gave way, and believed me to be his sister Anna,
even as though I were risen from the dead. And thou rememberest how he
fetched in his wife, and told her that I was not dead, but was come
back to the old home once more, changed as I was. And she would scarce
believe him, and scanned me with a cold, distrustful eye, till at
length--for I knew her of old as Babette Mueller--I said that I was
well-to-do, and needed not to seek out friends for what they had to
give. And then she asked--not me, but her husband--why I had kept
silent so long, leading all--father, brother, every one that loved me
in my own dear home--to esteem me dead. And then thine uncle (thou
rememberest?) said he cared not to know more than I cared to tell; that
I was his Anna, found again, to be a blessing to him in his old age, as
I had been in his boyhood. I thanked him in my heart for his trust; for
were the need for telling all less than it seems to me now I could not
speak of my past life. But she, who was my sister-in-law still, held
back her welcome, and, for want of that, I did not go to live in
Heidelberg as I had planned beforehand, in order to be near my brother
Fritz, but contented myself with his promise to be a father to my
Ursula when I should die and leave this weary world.

That Babette Mueller was, as I may say, the cause of all my life's
suffering. She was a baker's daughter in Heidelberg--a great beauty, as
people said, and, indeed, as I could see for myself I, too--thou sawest
my picture--was reckoned a beauty, and I believe I was so. Babette
Mueller looked upon me as a rival. She liked to be admired, and had no
one much to love her. I had several people to love me--thy grandfather,
Fritz, the old servant Kaetchen, Karl, the head apprentice at the
mill--and I feared admiration and notice, and the being stared at as
the 'Schoene Muellerin,' whenever I went to make my purchases in
Heidelberg.

Those were happy, peaceful days. I had Kaetchen to help me in the
housework, and whatever we did pleased my brave old father, who was
always gentle and indulgent towards us women, though he was stern
enough with the apprentices in the mill. Karl, the oldest of these, was
his favourite; and I can see now that my father wished him to marry me,
and that Karl himself was desirous to do so. But Karl was rough-spoken,
and passionate--not with me, but with the others--and I shrank from him
in a way which