hat you
haven't read it, Fraeulein; how pleased Klaus will be.'

"'Herr von Hegewitz!' I corrected, bluntly.

"'Pardon!' returned Isabella, 'the name came so easily to my lips; I
have heard it so often from Susanna that----'

"'Very well!' I interrupted. 'Now, to return to the letter; it almost
sounds as if you knew the contents. I hope Susanna does not conduct her
correspondence under your direction!'

"Isabella Pfannenschmidt grew crimson. 'Heaven forbid!' she said,
casting an angry glance at me. 'Susanna only spoke in a general way of
what she was going to write, to tell him how grateful she is and how
honored and how she loves him.'

"'I do not wish to know anything about it,' I replied, coldly. 'I only
expect of Susanna that she will not allow all that she has to say to-day
to her lover--something which, it seems to me, should be as sacred as a
prayer--to be desecrated by meddling eyes.'

"Isabella smiled in embarrassment; she evidently did not understand me.
'To whom can I give this letter,' she asked, 'to send it to the
post-office?'

"'Leave it here; I will see that it is put into the mail-bag,' I
replied. When I went down later, I found Susanna sitting motionless on a
bench in the garden. She seemed to be buried in a book; but her first
letter was already with a messenger, on the way to the city.

"Anna Maria had grown calmer than I expected; it seemed as if some great
force had carried her half over her sorrow about Klaus. She brought me
his letter at supper time; it contained warm expressions of thanks,
infinite love for his sister, permeated with rapture at the possession
of Susanna. The world seemed to him more beautiful than ever; he
pictured to himself such a wonderful future, with Susanna, with Anna
Maria. Again and again came a fervent, 'But how shall I thank you, Anna
Maria, for this, that you will love my little bride as a sister? I have
always known that we think an infinite deal of each other, and it seems
to me as if my love for you had become even greater! Anna Maria, how I
wish for you such a happiness as mine!' He added that he should be as
pleased as a child at the first lines from Susanna, that he had an
endless longing to come home, but, unfortunately, business made it
impossible; the fatigues of the journey he would think nothing of.

"Anna Maria silently folded the letter which I returned to her, and put
it in her pocket, 'Have you seen Susanna since she received her letter?'
she