"'Anna Maria,' said I, 'I will laugh at you, but you must laugh back at me. Only think, yesterday I sent an announcement of the engagement to Stürmer; I could not keep it to myself any longer that Klaus is engaged.'
"'Heavens, the papers! I forget everything. The banns--I must see to that first, aunt.'
"To-day the hours seemed to pass much more slowly than usual. Toward four o'clock I sat waiting at the window; my heartbeat as violently as Anna Maria's, perhaps. She, I knew, was down-stairs in her room, restless and anxious. Half-past four struck, five, and Stürmer was not yet here. Instead, Susanna came into my room and sat down opposite me; she had her kitten in her arms and began to play with it.
"I should have liked to send her away, but no suitable excuse occurred to me at that moment. It is fearful how slowly the minutes pass when one is counting them in anxious expectation; heavy as lead, each second seems to spin itself out to eternity, and one starts at every sound. No, that was a farm-wagon, now a horseman; ah! it is only the bailiff.
"Susanna felt my silence and restlessness painfully at any rate. 'Oh, it is fearfully tiresome in the country in winter!' she sighed. 'What can one do all day long?'
"'Have you written to Klaus yet?' I asked.
"'O dear, no!' she replied, with a suppressed yawn. 'I don't know what to write him; I have no experience, I hear and see nothing.'
"'Well, an engaged girl is not usually at a loss for something to write to the future husband,' I remarked.
"'Indeed?' she asked, absently. 'Yes, it may be, but I--I find it so stupid just to drag out variations of the theme, "I love you."'
"'Klaus has written you, no doubt, Susanna, that you are to be published from the pulpit on Sunday?'
"She started, and stared at me with wide-open, awestruck eyes. 'I don't know,' she stammered, 'I----'
"'But you must know what is in his letter,' I said, impatiently.
"'Yes, I--' She put her hand in her pocket and drew out a letter. 'I haven't read it yet; I was going to this evening--but----'
"'You have not opened the letter yet?' I cried, quite beside myself. 'Well, I must say, this case is unparalleled! You complain of _ennui_, and yet carry quietly about in your pocket the most interesting thing that can exist for you! The variations on the familiar theme do, indeed, seem tiresome to you, Susanna!'