"Anna Maria, do you say? My own aunt, it is perfectly ridiculous!"
"Laugh then, you unbeliever, you will soon be convinced of the truth of my conjecture. We women, especially we old maids, Klauschen, look at such things more sharply. Soon some one will come and carry away your darling, and then we too may sit here and have the dumps, my beloved boy! What will become of us?"
"_Some one_, aunt? You speak in riddles."
"Well, since you are so dreadfully smitten with blindness, _mon cher_, it is a Christian duty on my part to open your eyes. Do you not see the girl's entirely altered manner? Have you never--But to what purpose is all this? In short, Anna Maria loves Stürmer!"
Another hearty laugh interrupted the old lady. But Anna Maria, with closed eyes, leaned against the door-post; the ground seemed to give way beneath her feet.
"Kurt Stürmer? Uncle Stürmer? But, my dear aunt," cried the young man, "he might almost be her father!"
"No! I don't believe it, however. Shall we bet?"
Anna Maria straightened up. She was on the point of going in and saying, "Why do you argue? I do love him--yes! a thousand times, yes!" But she stood still; her brother's voice sounded so strangely altered.
"Klaus! Have you not thought for a long time that it must happen some day?"
"Yes, yes! But--Ah! I have stood in fear of this hour, since the child is the only one to whom my heart clings; you do not know how much, perhaps, aunt!"
"Klaus,"--the old lady's voice was melting with tenderness--"my dear old lad, you are still young: why should there not be a happiness yet in store for you? I have often told you you ought to marry."
"Marry? You say that to me, aunt? and you know that I have been a wretched being for years, because----"
"But, Klaus, do you still think of that?" sounded the anxious voice of the aunt.
"Still?" he repeated ironically. "Am I not daily reminded of it? Do you think, because I live so peacefully now and can join in a laugh, because food and wine taste good to me--I see the tower of her family home whenever I go to the window, I see Anna Maria, I cannot pass that fatal spot in the garden without the words she then spoke reächoing in my soul. I know them by heart, aunt, I have called and whispered them for weeks in fever; and ever again her enchanting figure stands before my eyes, and that sweet, beseeching tone rings in my ears, as seductive as Satan himself: '_Put that obstinate, disagreeable child out of your house; she interferes with our happiness!_'"