My mother had been ailing for some time, and the physician now recommended her living in the south. She put the estate entirely in my brother's charge and moved to the Riviera, taking me along. * * * * * Nine years were to elapse before I came back home. The return was sadder than ever I should have dreamed. In Berlin, where I had lived after my mother's death, a tricky nervous trouble had taken hold of me and kept me confined to bed for many weeks. The doctors wrestled with death and saved my life, but the blooming young girl had become a pale weak shadow. My physician recommended the country and pine-needle baths, and so I was bundled on to the train and transported to my brother's estate. I must have presented a pretty pitiful spectacle, because when I reached the house and was lifted out of the carriage, I saw tears in the old domestics' eyes. It is a peculiar feeling to know you are back home again after long wanderings, especially if you have gone through as much trouble as I had. A rare softness takes hold of you, and you try to blot out forever the joy and the suffering imposed by an alien world. You try to be a child again and conjure up long lost magic out of the grave. As I leaned back in my reclining chair and let my tired eyes roam over the familiar fields, one shade after another came alive again, and the first one in the motley throng was--my dear, flaxen--haired goose-herd. "What has become of him?" I asked my brother, and was rejoiced by the good news that he had grown up into a fine, good-looking young man and could already fully take the place of his father, the smith. I felt my heart throbbing. I tried to scold myself for my folly, but with poor success. The dear old memories were not to be dismissed, and finally I yielded myself up to them unrestrainedly and pictured the manner of our seeing each other again in all the glowing colours of fairy tale romance. A few days after my arrival I was allowed to take my first drive. I was lifted into a carriage, driven to the woods, and then set down on a soft, mossy, peaceful little spot, which I had selected deliberately. From it you could see the smithy in which the companion of my childhood dwelt. My brother wanted to stay with me, but I begged him not to let me keep him from his work, and assured him that the little girl sent along to wait on me was quite enough protection. Besides, what was there to be afraid of in these peaceful home woods? So, the coachman drove my brother back to his office on the estate, and they were to call for me again in two hours. Then I dismissed the little girl, too, telling her to go hunt strawberries but to stay nearby. She ran off happily. I was alone at last! Now I could dream to my heart's content. The fir trees rustled overhead, and from the smithy came the dull blows of the hammer. Brightly glowed the fire in the forge, and every now and then a dark figure glided in front of it. That must be he.