"No; grandpapa never paid me, poor little thing, enough attention to care about my improvement." She spoke entirely without bitterness, rather with a kind of smiling resignation. She went on to remove every particle of dust that had accumulated during Susie’s illness upon tables and chairs, and closed the other windows. "There must be some flowers upon these stone window-ledges; their fragrance will refresh my poor Susie. I shall beg brother Moritz for some hyacinths and pots of violets from his conservatory——"
"You will have to apply to Frau President Urach; she has absolute and sole control of the conservatory; it belongs to her apartments."
The young girl opened her eyes. "Is etiquette so strictly observed at the villa now? During papa’s lifetime the conservatory was the common property of the family." She shrugged her shoulders. "True, my father’s distinguished mother-in-law was, at that time, only an occasional guest at the villa." Her melodious voice sharpened slightly in tone as she spoke these last words, but she tossed her head as she finished, as if she could thus shake off a momentarily disagreeable sensation, and added, with a smile, "’Tis all the better that I came first to the mill to acclimatize myself."
He left the window and approached her. "But will they not be vexed over there that you did not immediately upon your arrival place yourself under the protection of the family?" he asked, seriously, as one who would like to hint a gentle word of advice without presuming.
"They have no right to be so," she hastily and eagerly replied, with a blush. "Those ’over there,’ ’the family,’ as you call them, are alike strangers to me; I cannot beforehand feel as if I belonged to them, not even to my sisters. We do not know one another; there has not been even the slight tie of an interchange of letters between us,—I have corresponded only with Moritz. While papa lived, Henriette resided with her grandmother; we saw each other but seldom, and then always in the presence of the Frau President. My sister, Moritz Römer’s wife, lived in town, and died long ago. And Flora? She was very beautiful and charming,—a belle who was at the head of papa’s household while I was a child. Flora must have been wonderfully gifted, one always felt so timid and awe-stricken in her presence. I never ventured to talk to her, or even to touch her beautiful hands, and to-day I feel it would be very presuming for me to adopt towards her the familiar tone customary between sisters."