schnapps as to be
perfectly able to look after the household without other assistance.
When Schnetz asked her whether she meant to go to her grandfather she
answered, with a fleeting blush, that "she did not know yet herself;
she had managed to get along without him hitherto, just as he had
without her. She wouldn't swear that she wouldn't go to him; she must
get to know him better first. But she would never let herself be robbed
of her liberty!"

Felix had listened in amazement, for he had not yet been initiated into
old Schoepf's history. He spoke very kindly to the good child, and held
her hand for a moment tenderly in his. She suffered him to retain it
without returning his gentle pressure, and looked quietly past him as
though she would say: "That is all very fine, but it can do me no
good." Then she allowed Schnetz to exact a promise from her that she
would write him her address as soon as she found a lodging-place, and,
with a last "Adieu, and a quick recovery!" she marched out of the gate
with such a quick and resolute step that it would never have entered
any one's head to suppose that this was a parting at which her heart
had bled.

Rossel, of whom she took no leave, sank into still deeper melancholy
when he learned of her departure, and the innocent Kohle, who was
always the last to notice anything that was going on about him,
contrived to pour oil on the fire by exhausting himself in eulogies of
this remarkable girl, who was missed now in every nook and corner. He
was forced to content himself with immortalizing, from memory, her
little nose and golden mane, as he called it, in the scene at the
cloister; in which effort he succeeded but poorly, according to the
judgment of Fat Rossel.

And so, in spite of the cheerful autumn days, the atmosphere in the
villa was none of the brightest. Even in the case of the convalescent
Felix, the more he felt his strength increase, the less did he seem to
rejoice in the new lease of life that had been granted him. Those words
of greeting from his old love, that had made him so happy in his
feverish dreams, had vanished from his memory upon his return to
perfect consciousness. He only knew that her uncle had received daily
bulletins of his condition, and that they would not leave Starnberg
until all danger was over. But they might easily have shown as much
sympathy as that to a stranger, with whom they had chanced to stand in
merely formal relations. For the rest, in wh