And how delightful it was in the wood; how pleasant the rowing on the
water, during which, when the joy of existence was at its height, the
saddest songs were sung! Oh, I could relate a hundred things of those
birthdays in the country, but I have completely forgotten how we
got home. I only know that we waked the next morning full of happy
recollections.

In the summer holidays we often took journeys--generally to Dresden,
where our father's mother with her daughter, our aunt Sophie, had gone
to live, the latter having married Baron Adolf von Brandenstein, an
officer in the Saxon Guard, who, after laying aside the bearskin cap
and red coat, the becoming uniform of that time, was at the head of the
Dresden post office.

I remember these visits with pleasure, and the days when our grandmother
and aunt came to Berlin. I was fond of both of them, especially my
lively aunt, who was always ready for a joke, and my affection was
returned. But these, our nearest relatives, in early childhood only
passed through our lives like brilliant meteors; the visits we exchanged
lasted only a few days; and when they came to Berlin, in spite of my
mother's pressing invitations, they never stayed at our house, but in
a hotel. I cannot imagine, either, that our grandmother would ever have
consented to visit any one. There was a peculiar exclusiveness about
her, I might almost say a cool reserve, which, although proofs of
her cordial love were not wanting, prevented her from caressing us or
playing with us as grandmothers do. She belonged to another age, and
our mother taught us, when greeting her, to kiss her little white hand,
which was always covered up to the fingers with waving lace, and to
treat her with the utmost deference. There was an air of aristocratic
quiet in her surroundings which caused a feeling of constraint. I
can still see the suite of spacious rooms she occupied, where silence
reigned except when Coco, the parrot, raised his shrill voice. Her
companion, Fraulein Raffius, always lowered her voice in her presence,
though when out of it she could play with us very merrily. The elderly
servant, who, singularly enough, was of noble family--his real name was
Von Wurmkessel--did his duty as noiselessly as a shadow. Then there was
a faint perfume of mignonette in most of the rooms, which makes me think
of them whenever I see the pretty flower, for, as is well known, smell
is the most powerful of all the senses in awakening m