e different Gymnasiums.

June 14th. I am so excited. We were going to school to-day at 9 and
suddenly we heard a tremendous rattling with a sword; that is Hella
heard it, for she always notices that sort of thing before I do, and she
said: "Hullo, that's an o-- in a frightful hurry," and looked round; "I
say, there's Viktor behind us" and he really was, he was saluting us and
he said: Fraulein Rita, can you give me a moment; you'll excuse me won't
you, Fraulein Hella? He always calls me Rita, and it shows what a nice
refined kind of a man he is that he should know my friend's name. Hella
said directly: "Don't mention it, Herr Oberleutenant, don't let me be
in your way if it's anything important," and she went over to the
other side of the street. He looked after her and said: "What a lovely,
well-mannered young lady your friend is." Then he came back to the main
point He has already had 2 letters from Dora, but not an answer to
his letter, because she can't fetch it from the post office, _poste
restante_. Then he implored me to enclose a letter from him in mine to
Dora. But since Mother naturally reads my letters, I told him it was
not so simple as all that; but I knew of a splendid way out of the
difficulty; I would write to Mother and Dora _at the same time_, so
that Dora could get hold of _his letter_ while Mother was not noticing.
Viktor was awfully pleased and said: "You're a genius and a first-class
little schemer," and kissed my hand. Still, he might have left out the
"little." If one's is so _little_, one can't very well be a schemer.
From the other side of the street Hella saw him kiss my hand. She says
I did not try to draw it away, but held it out to him like a grand lady
and even dropped it at the wrist. She says we girls of good family do
that sort of thing by instinct. It may be so, for I certainly did not
do it intentionally. In the afternoon I wrote the two letters, just the
ordinary one to Mother and a short one to Dora with the enclosure, and
took it to the post _myself_.

June 16th. I've already got so used to being alone with Father that I
take it as a matter of course. We often drive in the Prater, or go in
the evening to have supper in one of the parks, and of course Hella
comes with us. I am frightfully excited to know what Dora will write. I
forgot to write in my diary the other day that I asked Viktor if he was
really going to New York. He said he had no idea of doing anything of
the kind, that