"For some time yet she had to keep her bed; then her childish step was heard again about the house, her slender figure nestled again in the deep easy-chair in the garden-parlor, and she went about the park as of old, idling away the days, and gradually signs of returning health appeared in her cheeks.
"She evidently missed Klaus; it was most plainly to be seen in her dress. She seemed astonishingly negligent; at a slight word of blame from me, the question, 'For whom?' rose quickly to her lips, but she did not speak it, and turned away her blushing face. Isabella Pfannenschmidt came to the house a few days after Klaus's departure, while Susanna was still in bed. I entered the room soon after her, and found the old woman by the bed, a vexed expression on her face. My ear just caught the words: 'Yes, now, there we have it: the egg will always be wiser than the hen!'
"She was embarrassed at my entrance, but remained fierce and surly. I purposely did not leave them alone, and toward evening she took her leave, with a thousand fond words to Susanna, and a cold courtesy to me. 'All will yet be well, my sweet little dear; only wait!' she whispered before she went."
"Life went on quietly in the house without a master. Anna Maria was busy until late in the evening; she possessed an endless capacity for work. 'I can bear Klaus's absence easier so,' she said, when I urged her to give herself some rest. 'I miss him infinitely, aunt!' Stürmer came occasionally to inquire for the ladies. Once he arrived at the same time with Anna Maria; she, like him, was on horseback; they had probably met on the highway, for Anna Maria came from the fields, the bailiff behind her. I was standing at the window with Susanna. 'What a splendid couple!' said I, involuntarily, and indeed I thought I had scarcely ever seen Anna Maria look so handsome.
"Klaus wrote rarely; those times were not like the present, and one was well satisfied to receive a letter once a fortnight. Anna Maria answered promptly; her accounts must have been sufficiently detailed, for no letter or inquiry in regard to our secret came to me. Anna Maria used to read Klaus's letters, with the exception of the business portions, aloud, after supper. There was a certain homesick sound in the words, calmly and coolly as they were written. But her face beamed at every word which he wrote from the enchanted Silesia in praise of the poor home in the Mark; it stirred her whole heart. Next to her tender affection for her brother, she clung with an idolizing love to her home; no mountain lake could compare with the brown, oak-bound pond in the garden, no high mountain-range with the charm of the heath, with the pine-forests in the cradle of Prussia.