rm pervaded the
outside world. I went up to Anna Maria at the open window and looked at
the black clouds looming up in the horizon. My eyes roved beyond the
trees in the garden, out into the country; strangely near seemed the
dark forests and Dambitz with its clumsy tower.

"'How near Dambitz looks,' I remarked, 'and it is really so far away.'

"Anna Maria turned quickly. 'Very far,' she said listlessly.

"'Stuermer still stays away,' I began, designedly. I felt compassion for
the man whom an incomprehensible whim of a girl had driven away into the
world, just when he had hoped to find a home and heart; I had once, for
the space of half an hour, imagined that she loved him.

"I received no answer, but about the girl's lips there lay such an
expression of pride and defiant resolution that I resolved never to
mention that name again. She gazed fixedly at the dark clouds, and at
last said, in a wearily oppressed tone: 'Is not that the rumbling of a
carriage?'

"'Perhaps the thunder,' I replied. But before we had closed the window
and I had looked around the room again, Brockelmann stood, with flushed
face, before Anna Maria. 'Gracious Fraeulein, she is--they are here--God
in Heaven!'

"'What is the matter?' asked Anna Maria.

"'There are two of them, Fraeulein, and queer enough she looks--the old
woman, I mean. And a thunder-storm like this is just the time for them
to come to the house in!'

"The storm had indeed broken loose, with thunder and lightning, and
torrents of rain. The old woman made haste to light the candles on the
great mantel, for it was almost dark in the room.

"'They are coming up-stairs already!' she cried, and hurried out,
leaving the door open.

"Anna Maria had not interrupted the old woman by a word; it was not her
way to apprehend quickly a new turn of affairs. So she snuffed the
candles quite composedly and remained standing by the mantel, so as to
keep the door in sight. Her face was as cold and still again as usual,
and did not show the slightest trace of expectation or curiosity, nor
did it alter when in the door-way. But how shall I describe the young
creature who, as suddenly as in a fairy-tale, stepped over the
threshold?

"There never was but one Susanna Mattoni! I do not know whether she
could be called a beauty; perhaps her sparkling brown eyes were too
large for that, too widely opened for the narrow face, the nose too
short, the lips too full, and the complexion too pale; b