"To be sure, I only dreamed it," Lena went on. "But why did I dream it? Because all day long it had been in my mind. My dream was only what my heart told me. And what I wanted to tell you, Botho, and the reason why I ran after you a few steps was, that what I said last night holds good. That I could pass this summer with you was a joy to me, and always will be, even if I must be unhappy from this day forth." "Lena, Lena, do not say that ..." "You feel yourself that I am right; only your kind heart struggles against it and will not admit the truth. But I know it: yesterday, as we were walking across the meadow, chattering together, and I picked you the bunch of flowers, it was our last joy and our last beautiful hour." With this interview the day had ended, and now it was the following morning, and the summer sunshine was streaming brightly into Botho's room. Both windows stood open and the sparrows were quarreling in the chestnut tree outside. Botho himself was leaning back in a rocking-chair, smoking a meerschaum pipe and striking with his handkerchief now and then at a big blue-bottle fly that came in at one window as fast as he went out of the other, to buzz persistently around Botho. "If I could only get rid of the creature. I should enjoy tormenting it. These big flies are always bearers of bad news, and then they are as spitefully persistent as if they took pleasure in the trouble that they announce." And he struck at the fly once more. "Gone again. It is no use. Resignation then is the only help. On the whole, submission is the best. The Turks are the cleverest people." While Botho was thus soliloquising, the shutting of the little wicket gate led him to look into the garden, where he saw the letter carrier who had just entered and with a slight military salute and a "Good morning, Herr Baron" first handed him a paper and then a letter through the low window. Botho threw the paper aside, and looked at the letter, on which he easily recognised his mother's small, close, but still very legible handwriting. "I thought as much ... I know already, before I have read it. Poor Lena." And he opened the letter and read: "Schloss Zehden, June 29, 1875." "My dear Botho: