“Oh, get away with you!” she replied, and, pouting, tried to turn over to the other side; but the hammock began to sway too much again, so she laughed and remained lying as she was.
He wondered inwardly at her being so merry. He never heard any one laugh like that, except the twins, and they were children. But this laugh gave him back his self-possession, for he felt instinctively how much older than she he had grown during the interval.
“I suppose you have been very happy all this time?” he asked.
“Thank God, yes!” she replied. “Mamma is always rather delicate, but that is all.” A shadow passed over her face, but disappeared again the next moment, and then she chatted on: “I have been in town--oh dear, what I have gone through there! I must tell you about it at the first opportunity. I have had dancing lessons. I have also had admirers--you can fancy that! They serenaded me under my windows, sent me anonymous bouquets, and verses, too--original verses! There was a student, among others, with a white-braided coat, and a green, white, and red cap; oh, he understood it! The things he would say to you! Afterwards he engaged himself to Betty Schirrmacher, one of my friends, but quite in secret--nobody knows it but myself.”
Paul breathed freely again, for the student had already begun to make him uncomfortable.
“No; we are above such things,” she replied, shugging her shoulders. “Oh, you know--they are all stupid boys in comparison with you!”
He felt quite frightened at the idea of calling a student a stupid boy, and, above all, in comparison with him.
“My brother is no stupid boy,” he retorted.
“I don’t know your brother,” she said, with philosophic calmness; “perhaps he is not. Oh, I have grown ever so much older,” she went on. “I took literature lessons, and from that I learned many beautiful things.”
In gold letters he read on the red cover the words, “Heine’s Buch der Lieder” (Heine’s Book of Songs), and shook his head sadly.
“Ah, then you don’t know anything! Oh, how much there is in that book! I must lend it to you. There, read that; it teaches one a great deal. And after reading it for a little while one generally begins to cry.”
“Is it so sad, then?” he asked, looking at the cover with shy curiosity.