"Yes, she could--not a whole sister, perhaps, but a half one."

"Well, as you please. The idea is sweet to me. I was going to ask you--but Karlchen's letter is too touching, really--such thoughts in it--such high ideals----" And she turned over the sheets, of which there were three, and began to blow her nose.

"He has written you a very long letter," said Anna pleasantly; the extent to which the nose blowing was being carried made her uneasy. Was there to be crying?

"You have a cold, dear Frau von Treumann?" inquired the baroness with solicitude.

"_Ach nein--doch nein_," murmured Frau von Treumann, turning the sheets over, and blowing her nose harder than ever.

"It will come off," thought Letty, who had slipped in unnoticed, and was eating bread and b.u.t.ter alone at the further end of the table.

"Poor thing," thought Anna, "she adores that Karlchen."

There was a pause, during which the nose continued to be blown.

"His letter is beautiful, but sad--very sad," said Frau von Treumann, shaking her head despondingly. "Poor boy--poor dear boy--he misses his mother, of course. I knew he would, but I did not dream it would be as bad as this. Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt--well, Anna then"--smiling faintly--"I could never describe to you the wrench it was, the terrible, terrible wrench, leaving him who for five years--I am a widow five years--has been my all."

"It must have been dreadful," murmured Anna sympathetically.

The baroness sat straight and motionless, staring fixedly at Frau von Treumann.

"'When shall I see you again, my dearest mamma?' were his last words.

And I could give him no hope--no answer." The handkerchief went up to her eyes.

"What _is_ she ga.s.sing about?" wondered Letty.

"I can see him now, fading away on the platform as my train bore me off to an unknown life. An only son--the only son of a widow--is everything, everything to his mother."

"He must be," said Anna.

There was another silence. Then Frau von Treumann wiped her eyes and took up the letter again. "Now he writes that though I have only been away two days from Rislar, the town he is stationed at, it seems already like years. Poor boy! He is quite desperate--listen to this--poor boy----" And she smiled a little, and read aloud, "'I must see you, _liebste, beste Mama_, from time to time. I had no idea the separation would be like this, or I could never have let you go. Pray beg Miss Estcourt----'"

"Aha," thought the baroness.

"'--to allow me to visit my mother occasionally. There must be an inn in the village. If not, I could stay at Stralsund, and would in no way intrude on her. But I must see my dearest mother, the being I have watched over and cared for ever since my father's death.' Poor, dear, foolish boy--he is desperate----" And she folded up the letter, shook her head, smiled, and suddenly buried her face in her handkerchief.

"Excellent Treumann," thought the unblinking baroness.

Anna sat in some perplexity. Sons had not entered into her calculations.

In the correspondence, she remembered, the son had been lightly pa.s.sed over as an officer living on his pay and without a superfluous penny for the support of his parent. Not a word had been said of any unusual affection existing between them. Now it appeared that the mother and son were all in all to each other. If so, of course the separation was dreadful. A mother's love was a sentiment that inspired Anna with profound respect. Before its unknown depths and heights she stood in awe and silence. How could she, a spinster, even faintly comprehend that sacred feeling? It was a mysterious and beautiful emotion that she could only reverence from afar. Clearly she must not come between parent and child; but yet--yet she wished she had had more time to think it over.

She looked rather helplessly at Frau von Treumann, and gave her hand a little squeeze. The hand did not return the squeeze, and the face remained buried in the handkerchief. Well, it would be absurd to want to cut off the son entirely from his mother. If he came occasionally to see her it could not matter much. She gave the hand a firmer squeeze, and said with an effort that she did her best to conceal, "But he must come then, when he can. It is rather a long way--didn't you say you had to stay a night in Berlin?"

"Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt--my dear Anna!" cried Frau von Treumann, s.n.a.t.c.hing the handkerchief from her face and seizing Anna's hand in both hers, "what a weight from my heart--what a heavy, heavy weight! All night I was thinking how shall I bear this? I may write to him, then, and tell him what you say? A long journey? You are afraid it will tire him? Oh, it will be nothing, nothing at all to Karlchen if only he can see his mother. How can I thank you! You will say my grat.i.tude is excessive for such a little thing, and truly only a mother could understand it----"

In short, Karlchen's appearance at Kleinwalde was now only a matter of days.

"_Unverschamt_," was the baroness's mental comment.

CHAPTER XIX

Anna put on her hat and went out to think it over. Fraulein Kuhrauber was apparently still asleep. Letty, accompanied by Miss Leech, had to go to Lohm parsonage for her first lesson with Herr Klutz, who had undertaken to teach her German. Frau von Treumann said she must write at once to Karlchen, and shut herself up to do it. The baroness was vague as to her intentions, and disappeared. So Anna started off by herself, crossed the road, and walked quickly away into the forest. "If it makes her so happy, then I am glad," she said to herself. "She is here to be happy; and if she wants Karlchen so badly, why then she must have him from time to time. I wonder why I don't like Karlchen."

She walked quickly, with her eyes on the ground. The mood in which she sang magnificats had left her, nor did she look to see what the April morning was doing. Frau von Treumann had not been under her roof twenty-four hours, and already her son had been added--if only occasionally, still undoubtedly added--to the party. Suppose the baroness and Fraulein Kuhrauber should severally disclose an inability to live without being visited by some cherished relative? Suppose the other nine, the still Unchosen, should each turn out to have a relative waiting tragically in the background for permission to make repeated calls? And suppose these relatives should all be male?

These were grave questions; so grave that she was quite at a loss how to answer them. And then she felt that somebody was looking at her; and raising her eyes, she saw Axel on the mossy path quite close to her.

"So deep in thought?" he asked, smiling at her start.

Anna wondered how it was that he so often went through the forest. Was it a short cut from Lohm to anywhere? She had met him three or four times lately, in quite out of the way parts. He seemed to ride through it and walk through it at all hours of the day.

"How is your potato-planting getting on?" she asked involuntarily. She knew what a rush there was just then putting the potatoes in, for she did not drive every day about her fields in a cart without springs with Dellwig for nothing. Axel must have potatoes to plant too; why didn't he stay at home, then, and do it?

"What a truly proper question for a country lady to ask," he said, looking amused. "You waste no time in conventional good mornings or asking how I do, but begin at once with potatoes. Well, I do not believe that you are really interested in mine, so I shall tell you nothing about them. You only want to remind me that I ought to be seeing them planted instead of walking about your woods."

Anna smiled. "I believe I did mean something like that," she said.

"Well, I am not so aimless as you suppose," he returned, walking by her side. "I have been looking at that place."

"What place?"

"Where Dellwig wants to build the brick-kiln."

"Oh! What do you think of it?"

"What I knew I would think of it. It is a fool's plan. The clay is the most wretched stuff. It has puzzled me, seeing how very poor it is, that he should be so eager to have the thing. I should have credited him with more sense."

"He is quite absurdly keen on it. Last night I thought he would never stop persuading."

"But you did not give in?"

"Not an inch. I said I would ask you to look at it, and then he was simply rude. I do believe he will have to go. I don't really think we shall ever get on together. Certainly, as you say the clay is bad, I shall refuse to build a brick-kiln."

Axel smiled at her energy. In the morning she was always determined about Dellwig. "You are very brave to-day," he said. "Last night you seemed afraid of him."

"He comes when I am tired. I am not going to see him in the evening any more. It is too dreadful as a finish to a happy day."

"It was a happy day, then, yesterday?" he asked quickly.

"Yes--that is, it ought to have been, and probably would have been if--if I hadn't been tired."

"But the others--the new arrivals--they must have been happy?"

"Yes--oh yes--" said Anna, hesitating, "I think so. Fraulein Kuhrauber was, I am sure, at intervals. I think the other two would have been if they hadn't had a journey."