Immensee | Page 8

it pecked at Elisabeth's fingers. Previously to this Reinhard's bird had hung in that spot.
"Has my poor linnet changed into a goldfinch after its death?" he asked jovially.
"Linnets are not accustomed to do any such thing," said Elizabeth's mother, who sat spinning in her armchair. "Your friend Eric sent it this noon from his estate as a present for Elisabeth."
"What estate?"
"Why, don't you know?"
"Know what?"
"That a month ago Eric took over his father's second estate by the Immensee." [Footnote: I.e. the 'Lake of the Bees']
"But you have never said a word to me about it."
"Well," said the mother, "you haven't yet made a single word of inquiry after your friend. He is a very nice, sensible young man."
The mother went out of the room to make the coffee. Elisabeth had her back turned to Reinhard, and was still busy with the making of her little chickweed bower.
"Please, just a little longer," she said, "I'll be done in a minute."
As Reinhard did not answer, contrary to his wont, she turned round and faced him. In his eyes there was a sudden expression of trouble which she had never observed before in them.
"What is the matter with you, Reinhard?" she said, drawing nearer to him.
"With me?" he said, his thoughts far away and his eyes resting dreamily on hers.
"You look so sad."
"Elisabeth," he said, "I cannot bear that yellow bird."
She looked at him in astonishment, without understanding his meaning. "You are so strange," she said.
He took both her hands in his, and she let him keep them there. Her mother came back into the room shortly after; and after they had drunk their coffee she sat down at her spinning-wheel, while Reinhard and Elisabeth went off into the next room to arrange their plants.
Stamens were counted, leaves and blossoms carefully opened out, and two specimens of each sort were laid to dry between the pages of a large folio volume.
All was calm and still this sunny afternoon; the only sounds to be heard were the hum of the mother's spinning-wheel in the next room, and now and then the subdued voice of Reinhard, as he named the orders of the families of the plants, and corrected Elisabeth's awkward pronunciation of the Latin names.
"I am still short of that lily of the valley which I didn't get last time," said she, after the whole collection had been classified and arranged.
Reinhard pulled a little white vellum volume from his pocket. "Here is a spray of the lily of the valley for you," he said, taking out a half-pressed bloom.
When Elisabeth saw the pages all covered with writing, she asked: "Have you been writing stories again?"
"These aren't stories," he answered, handing her the book.
The contents were all poems, and the majority of them at most filled one page. Elisabeth turned over the leaves one after another; she appeared to be reading the titles only. "When she was scolded by the teacher." "When they lost their way in the woods." "An Easter story." "On her writing to me for the first time." Thus ran most of the titles.
Reinhard fixed his eyes on her with a searching look, and as she kept turning over the leaves he saw that a gentle blush arose and gradually mantled over the whole of her sweet face. He would fain have looked into her eyes, but Elisabeth did not look up, and finally laid the book down before him without a word.
"Don't give it back like that," he said.
She took a brown spray out of the tin case. "I will put your favourite flower inside," she said, giving back the book into his hands.
At length came the last day of the vacation and the morning of his departure. At her own request Elisabeth received permission from her mother to accompany her friend to the stage-coach, which had its station a few streets from their house.
When they passed out of the front door Reinhard gave her his arm, and thus he walked in silence side by side with the slender maiden. The nearer they came to their destination the more he felt as if he had something he must say to her before he bade her a long farewell, something on which all that was worthy and all that was sweet in his future life depended, and yet he could not formulate the saving word. In his anguish, he walked slower and slower.
"You'll be too late," she said; "it has already struck ten by St Mary's clock."
But he did not quicken his pace for all that. At last he stammered out:
"Elisabeth, you will not see me again for two whole years. Shall I be as dear to you as ever when I come back?"
She nodded, and looked affectionately into his face.
"I stood up for you too," she said, after a pause.
"Me? And