eved 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, I fear, gave him pain. And then came thy uncle Fritz's
marriage;