sed them one after the other, and said something so sweet, so
dear,--but I can't tell you what it was. That's the worst of this
having a lover,--all the most wonderful, beautiful things that are
being said to me by him are things I can't tell you, my mother, my
beloved mother whom I've always told everything to all my life. Just
the things you'd love most to hear, the things that crown me with glory
and pride, I can't tell you. It is because they're sacred. Sacred and
holy to him and to me. You must imagine them, my precious one; imagine
the very loveliest things you'd like said to your Chris, and they won't
be half as lovely as what is being said to her. I must go now, because
Bernd and I are going sailing on the Haff in a fishing boat there is.
We're taking tea, and are going to be away till the evening. The
fishing boat has orange-coloured sails, and is quite big,--I mean you
can walk about on her and she doesn't tip up. We're going to run her
nose into the rushes along the shore when we're tired of sailing, and
Bernd is going to hear me say my German psalms and read Heine to me.
Good-bye then for the moment, my little darling one. How very heavenly
it is being engaged, and having the right to go off openly for hours
with the one person you want to be with, and nobody can say, "No, you
mustn't." Do you know Bernd has to have the Kaiser's permission to
marry? All officers have to, and he quite often says no. The girl has
to prove she has an income of her own of at least 5000 marks--that's
250 pounds a year--and be of demonstrably decent birth. Well, the
birth part is all right--I wonder if the Kaiser knows how to pronounce
Cholmondeley--and of course once I get playing at concerts I shall earn
heaps more than the 250 pounds; so I expect we shall be able to arrange
that. Kloster will give me a certificate of future earning powers, I'm
sure. But marrying seems so far off, such a dreamy thing, that I've
not begun really to think of it. Being engaged is quite lovely enough
to go on with. There's Bernd calling.

_Evening_.

I've just come in. It's ten o'clock. I've had the most perfect day.
Little mother, what an amazingly beautiful world it is. Everything is
combining to make this summer the most wonderful of summers for me.
How I shall think of it when I am old, and laugh for joy. The weather
is so perfect, people are so kind, my playing prospects are so
encouraging; and there's Bernd. Did yo