he was called the "little girl," which she had to suffer
only because her beautiful slender mother was a full hand's breadth
taller than she.

Effi had just stood up again to perform her calisthenic exercises when
her mother, who at the moment chanced to be looking up from her
embroidery, called to her: "Effi, you really ought to have been an
equestrienne, I'm thinking. Always on the trapeze, always a daughter
of the air. I almost believe you would like something of the sort."

"Perhaps, mama. But if it were so, whose fault would it be? From whom
do I get it? Why, from no one but you. Or do you think, from papa?
There, it makes you laugh yourself. And then, why do you always dress
me in this rig, this boy's smock? Sometimes I fancy I shall be put
back in short clothes yet. Once I have them on again I shall courtesy
like a girl in her early teens, and when our friends in Rathenow come
over I shall sit in Colonel Goetze's lap and ride a trot horse. Why
not? He is three-fourths an uncle and only one-fourth a suitor. You
are to blame. Why don't I have any party clothes? Why don't you make a
lady of me?"

"Should you like me to?"

"No." With that she ran to her mother, embraced her effusively and
kissed her.

"Not so savagely, Effi, not so passionately. I am always disturbed
when I see you thus."

At this point three young girls stepped into the garden through the
little iron gate in the churchyard wall and started along the gravel
walk toward the round bed and the sundial. They all waved their
umbrellas at Effi and then ran up to Mrs. von Briest and kissed her
hand. She hurriedly asked a few questions and then invited the girls
to stay and visit with them, or at least with Effi, for half an hour.
"Besides, I have something else that I must do and young folks like
best to be left to themselves. Fare ye well." With these words she
went up the stone steps into the house.

Two of the young girls, plump little creatures, whose freckles and
good nature well matched their curly red hair, were daughters of
Precentor Jahnke, who swore by the Hanseatic League, Scandinavia, and
Fritz Reuter, and following the example of his favorite writer and
fellow countryman, had named his twin daughters Bertha and Hertha, in
imitation of Mining and Lining. The third young lady was Hulda
Niemeyer, Pastor Niemeyer's only child. She was more ladylike than the
other two, but, on the other hand, tedious and conceited, a lymphatic
blonde, with