"'I was helped in my flight by the brother of my Hans Lutz, who happened to be on a visit to his parents at the time, and would have gone through fire and water for me. He took me safely to where I wanted to go, to my aunt Millie's, her real name was Amelia, but so we children always called her. She was an old widow-woman, lived upon her small means, and had always been very fond of me, though she used to shake her head at the way in which my family idolised me. When I told her all that had happened she neither praised nor blamed me, but wrote to my parents and tried to bring them round. That, alas, was in vain. My father answered very curtly that if I did not marry the young tanner I was no child of his; my mother tried persuasion. I now found out that it was only my unfortunate beauty that they had really loved, that a red-and-white mask stood between my own parents' hearts and that of their child. Out of sheer admiration and worship, they had less fondness for me than for any of their other children. "'But for this would they not have found time in the course of the whole year since I have left them, to comprehend that what I had run away from could not have made me happy, and that I was not necessarily a bad daughter, because unable to gratify them in that respect? But no, they have remained as hard as stone, hard as no one could be to any living creature who had a soul, but only towards a soulless picture such as they had long considered me, and as such set me up for show. It is true that while I remained at Speyer they might have hoped that I should change my mind. But my stay there was but short. My old aunt was accustomed to a very quiet life. Now when a beauty suddenly made her appearance in the house, whom all young men followed, and that visits and enquiries became incessant, and this person and that were always bringing me an offer from some one or other, it was too much for the good woman to bear. She told me one day that I could not remain any longer with her, but that she had found me a very good situation with a baroness who lived on her estates near Munich, and wanted a governess for her two little daughters; and as I had been well educated, could speak French and play the pianoforte, my aunt had arranged it all, and I was to set off the next day but one.