"'I do not comprehend you,' Anna Maria said, now icily; 'if I have rightly understood my brother's letter, Susanna gave her assent on the evening when she fled to you. What? Is she, meanwhile, to have changed her mind?'
"Again a murmur; then I heard disconnected words between the old woman's sobs: 'Defence--true love--' and so forth. This homeless woman was as pretentious as a ruling princess making arrangements to give her daughter in marriage to a man of a lower class.
"Then I heard her leave the room. When I reëntered Anna Maria was standing at the window, her forehead pressed against the panes, her clenched hand rested on the window-sill, and her lips were tightly closed.
"'Anna Maria,' said I, 'this person must leave the house.'
"'Klaus may decide that,' she replied, gently; 'I have no longer any voice in this matter.'
"'She is an arrogant thing!' I continued, in my wrath.
"Anna Maria turned. 'Ah, aunt,' said she, 'the old woman loves Susanna like a mother, and such a relative naturally asks, in respect to the most brilliant match: "Will it be for the child's happiness?" I ought not to have taken it amiss; it was unjust in me.'
"I pressed her hand softly. Anna Maria's noble sentiments sprang forth in her pain, like flowers after rain. God grant that she was right in her excuse!
"Half an hour afterward, Isabella Pfannenschmidt came in with Susanna, whose eyes were red with weeping, and hair dishevelled. Isabella led her to Anna Maria, and Susanna made a motion as if to take her hand, but her own fell to her side again, and so, for a moment, the two girls, so unlike, stood opposite each other. Anna Maria had turned pale, to her very lips; then she put her arm about Susanna's delicate shoulders, and drew her to herself. But Susanna slid to the floor, and, sobbing, embraced her knees; it seemed as if she wished to ask forgiveness for a heavy offence, but not a word passed her lips. She only looked up at Anna Maria, with an expression which I shall never forget my life long, she seemed so true in those few moments. But before Anna Maria could stoop to raise the girl, Isabella had already pulled her up with the sharp, quick words: 'Susanna, be sensible!'
"Did the old woman consider prostration before the sister of the future husband too much devotion, or did she fear that thereby her darling was subordinating herself, once for all, to the sister's strict _régime_? I could not decide at the time; I did not know till later that this moment was a fearful crisis in Susanna's heart.