dless and the first grain had
been harvested in Niendorf.

From the cities every one had fled to the watering-places or into the
mountains. The corner-house in the market-place was shut up from top to
bottom. Mrs. Baumhagen was in Switzerland, Mr. and Mrs. Fredericks in
Baden-Baden. Uncle Henry had gone to Heligoland, because nowhere can
one get such good breakfasts as on the dunes of that rocky island.

Only the two sat still in their nests; separated by a small extent of
wood and meadow, they could not have been further apart if the ocean
had rolled between. There was no crossing the gulf between them.

In Niendorf everything was irregular and in disorder. How should the
little Adelaide know anything about the management of a farm? She was
on her feet all day, she took a hundred unnecessary steps, and in the
evening she complained that the two dainty little feet in the pointed
high-heeled shoes hurt her so, and that the servants had no respect for
her. Aunt Rosa was in a bad temper, for she found herself in her old
age condemned to the life of a lady-in-waiting. Adelaide could not
possibly dine alone with Linden, and she must always be there. So at
twelve o'clock every day, the old lady put on her best cap, and sat,
the picture of misery, opposite Linden, in Gertrude's vacant place. The
meals were desperately melancholy. After awhile Adelaide also became
silent, since she very rarely got any reply to her remarks. So they ate
their dinner in silence and separated as soon as possible afterwards.

Frank, however, had work to do at least, he could not _always_ think
and brood and look at the locked door which led into Gertrude's room.
That happened in the evening in his quiet room when little Adelaide was
singing all manner of melancholy songs about love and longing
down-stairs. And at midnight when it was quite quiet, when every one
was asleep in the house and only some faint barking of a dog sounded
from the tillage, he wandered up and down the room till the lamp grew
dim and went out, and even then he did not stop.

He no longer expected her to come, though he had done so for days and
weeks. At first he had gone to the very walls of her garden with a
gnawing desire to see her; he would be there when she came out of the
gate, and he would go to meet her at the very first step. In vain, she
did not come.

Once the servants had seen him when his eyes were strangely red. "The
master is crying for the mistress," was t