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  When the Easter vacation came Reinhard journeyed home. On the morningafter his arrival he went to see Elisabeth.

  "How tall you've grown," he said, as the pretty, slender girl advancedwith a smile to meet him. She blushed, but made no reply; he had takenher hand in his own in greeting, and she tried to draw it gently away.He looked at her doubtingly, for never had she done that before; butnow it was as if some strange thing was coming between them.

  The same feeling remained, too, after he had been at home for sometime and came to see her constantly day after day. When they sat alonetogether there ensued pauses in the conversation which distressed him,and which he anxiously did his best to avoid. In order to have adefinite occupation during the holidays, he began to give Elisabethsome instruction in botany, in which he himself had been keenlyinterested during the early months of his university career.

  Elisabeth, who was wont to follow him in all things and was moreoververy quick to learn, willingly entered into the proposal. So nowseveral times in the week they made excursions into the fields or themoors, and if by midday they brought home their green field-box fullof plants and flowers, Reinhard would come again later in the day andshare with Elisabeth what they had collected in common.

  With this same object in view, he entered the room one afternoon whileElisabeth was standing by the window and sticking some fresh chick-weedin a gilded birdcage which he had not seen in the place before. In thecage was a canary, which was flapping its wings and shrilly chirrupingas it pecked at Elisabeth's fingers. Previously to this Reinhard's birdhad hung in that spot.

  "Has my poor linnet changed into a goldfinch after its death?" heasked jovially.

  "Linnets are not accustomed to do any such thing," said Elizabeth'smother, who sat spinning in her arm-chair. "Your friend Eric sent itthis 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 theImmensee."[3]

  [3] _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 ofinquiry after your friend. He is a very nice, sensible young man."

  The mother went out of the room to make the coffee. Elisabeth had herback turned to Reinhard, and was still busy with the making of herlittle chick-weed 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 andfaced him. In his eyes there was a sudden expression of trouble whichshe had never observed before in them.

  "What is the matter with you, Reinhard?" she said, drawing nearer tohim.

  "With me?" he said, his thoughts far away and his eyes restingdreamily 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. Hermother came back into the room shortly after; and after they had drunktheir coffee she sat down at her spinning-wheel, while Reinhard andElisabeth went off into the next room to arrange their plants.

  Stamens were counted, leaves and blossoms carefully opened out, andtwo specimens of each sort were laid to dry between the pages of alarge folio volume.

  All was calm and still this sunny afternoon; the only sounds to beheard 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 ordersof the families of the plants, and corrected Elisabeth's awkwardpronunciation of the Latin names.

  "I am still short of that lily of the valley which I didn't get lasttime," said she, after the whole collection had been classified andarranged.

  Reinhard pulled a little white vellum volume from his pocket. "Here isa spray of the lily of the valley for you," he said, taking out ahalf-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 filledone page. Elisabeth turned over the leaves one after another; sheappeared to be reading the titles only. "When she was scolded by theteacher." "When they lost their way in the woods." "An Easter story.""On her writing to me for the first time." Thus ran most of thetitles.

  Reinhard fixed his eyes on her with a searching look, and as she keptturning over the leaves he saw that a gentle blush arose and graduallymantled over the whole of her sweet face. He would fain have lookedinto her eyes, but Elisabeth did not look up, and finally laid thebook 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 favouriteflower inside," she said, giving back the book into his hands.

  At length came the last day of the vacation and the morning of hisdeparture. At her own request Elisabeth received permission from hermother to accompany her friend to the stage-coach, which had itsstation a few streets from their house.

  When they passed out of the front door Reinhard gave her his arm, andthus he walked in silence side by side with the slender maiden. Thenearer they came to their destination the more he felt as if he hadsomething 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 hisfuture 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 StMary's clock."

  But he did not quicken his pace for all that. At last he stammeredout:

  "Elisabeth, you will not see me again for two whole years. Shall I beas 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 against whom had you to stand up for me?"

  "Against my mother. We were talking about you a long time yesterdayevening after you left. She thought you were not so nice now as youonce were."

  Reinhard held his peace for a moment: then he took her hand in his,and looking gravely into her childish eyes, he said:

  "I am still just as nice as I ever was; I would have you firmlybelieve that. Do you believe it, Elisabeth?"

  "Yes," she said.

  He freed her hand and quickly walked with her through the last street.The nearer he felt the time of parting approach, the happier becamethe look on his face; he went almost too quickly for her.

  "What is the matter with you, Reinhard?" she asked.

  "I have a secret, a beautiful secret," said Reinhard, looking at herwith a light in his eyes. "When I come back again in two years' time,then you shall know it."

  Meanwhile they had reached the stage-coach; they were only just intime. Once more Reinhard took her hand. "Farewell!" he said,"farewell, Elisabeth! Do not forget!"

  She shook her head. "Farewell," she said. Reinhard climbed up into thecoach and the horses started. As the coach rumbled round the corner ofthe street he saw her dear form once more as she slowly wended her wayhome.

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