The next evening she received a note from him. He wrote: "I have just finished your story, and I cannot refrain from wishing you 'God-speed.' In spite of the deficiencies manifest in your work,--all _technique_ must be learned,--it shows much decided talent, a strange mixture of grace and force. The form is not always correct, betraying the beginner; but the colours are fine, and in spite of the optimism of your views, which produces upon me the effect of a fairy-tale, the personages and situations of your story are full of undeniable truth and life. As soon as my time permits I will come to discuss details by word of mouth." Johanna clasped her hands upon the note. "God-speed!" she said to herself, smiling through her tears. CHAPTER XXVI. DR. STEIN'S SCHEME. Life at Dönninghausen since Johanna's departure, although outwardly unchanged, was no longer the same. The Freiherr applied himself more diligently than ever to the administration of his extended estates, but the strictest attention to his work did not do away for him with the sensation of emptiness and loneliness. Whether he rode out or busied himself with accounts, at table with the family or shut up in his study, everywhere he missed his grand-daughter's watchful eyes, her comprehension of him, her vivacity, her fresh interest in life. In spite of the habit of more than seventy years, his sister hardly seemed so much his own as this young creature. He had always rather looked down upon the gentle docile Thekla, while in Johanna, in spite of the respect she always manifested towards him, he recognized an equal. And because she was so, and because she had found a home with him, her desertion of him, as he called it, was all the more irritating; and since he could not prevent his thoughts from dwelling upon her continually, he was all the more careful not to betray this weakness in words. Magelone had long since returned to Dönninghausen, graceful and capricious as ever, and yet Aunt Thekla fancied she was hardly the same; her merriment seemed forced. The monotony of her life weighed upon her more heavily, although she did not bewail it so often and so loudly as formerly. She did not know that Otto had confessed everything to his aunt, and the old lady shrank from telling her, although she sometimes thought that Magelone's mind would be easier if she could unburden it freely. She must be unhappy, for was not all the misfortune that had befallen Dönninghausen of late her fault? And it was because she knew this and repented it that her behaviour towards Otto was so strange: now so frigidly cold, and now so provokingly derisive.