ld have burst into tears if I had been alone, but
before Lina I restrained myself, only saying, "He has indeed grown
haughty and rude," and tried to go on with my drawing. To no purpose. I
could not put in another stroke, my eyes swam so in tears.

"'And in the midst of all my disappointment and vexation, the worst
part of it was that I could not be angry with him, that I would have
done anything to get a friendly look from him; and my shame at this
weakness made me so thoroughly unhappy, that at that moment, spite of
my much-extolled beauty, I seemed to myself the most wretched human
creature in the whole world.

"'I could not go on keeping up appearances much longer, but threw my
arms round my good sister's neck, and with many tears confessed to her
how deeply hurt I was, and that I must find out the reason of his
estrangement, or my heart would break. The kind soul comforted me as
well as she could, and when evening came, helped me to invent a pretext
to induce our mother to let us both go down together to the river, to
the very place where in former days our little harbour used to be.
There Lina left me alone, found out that she had something to do at
Hans Lutz's home, and whispered into his ear that I was waiting outside
under the willow, and had something to ask him. At first, as she told
me afterwards, he had looked very gloomy, and left her in doubt as to
what he would do. Then he seemed to relent, and a little later I saw
him coming down the road straight towards me, and I do not yet know how
I had courage to stand still and wait for him.

"'But at least I was rewarded for my courage. For he was by no means as
chilling as before, he even gave me his hand and said, "It is very kind
of you, Katharine, still to remember an old playfellow, and what is it
you have to say to me?" "Nothing," I said, "only that I wanted to know
what I had done to offend him, or whether anybody had been gossiping
about me that he should treat me as if I was not worth a word or a
look. That was all I asked to know, and then I would go away again
immediately." Upon which he told me in his quiet way as if it did not
signify to _him_ in the least, that he had heard I had grown into a
vain conceited little princess, held my head very high, did nothing but
look in the glass, or let myself be stared at by foreign fools, and as
he was not the man to come in to that, and had, indeed, other things to
do than to be always swinging incense before