During all this time I had heard nothing from my brother, and nobody knew of his whereabouts. One day I got a note from my father in which he told me that he had received a letter from Charlie. He wrote that he was very well off, and made quite a lot of money. When I read that, my heart beat faster. It is true that I never quite believed what he had said to me at our parting; but now I recalled every word of it, and wondered in a vague sense whether he was going to take me to Vienna. I remembered his advice about reading Schiller and Goethe, and felt a little alarmed because I had not yet done so. "There is no doubt," I said to myself, "that he is moving in society by now, and my utter ignorance of Schiller's dramas would be a source of constant humiliation to him." The fact that he had not written to me since he went away did not surprise me in the least. I thought that he had been obliged to work very hard, and had no time to spare. In order to be prepared for him in case he should really come for me, I made it my serious business to get a book by Schiller. But where was I to get it from? I had no money to spare for books, and could not think of buying one. In the dining-room there was a book-case, but it was always locked up. The books there seemed to be regarded more for an ornament than for use, since nobody ever took one out to read. But after another five or six months had elapsed, and no further news was heard of my brother, I gradually forgot those glowing pictures of an easy future, and finally thought no more about them. When I had been at my place for about two years, I happened to make the acquaintance of a young lady whom I met occasionally in the woods when walking with the children. She used to sit down on the bench beside me, and while the children ran about and played among the trees, she would sometimes start a conversation. "Why do you always stay at the same place?" she asked me one day. "Where else should I go?" "I could not answer that question offhand, but a girl like you ought to try what luck she can have in the world." "What do you mean?" "What do I mean? I mean that a girl like you ought to have quite a different position from the one you have at present." "But why do you say a girl like I am?" "No nonsense, if you please; you must know as well as I do, that you are as clever as you are pretty." I thought about what my brother had told me, and then looked down at my hands. "I always thought that I was very silly and very ugly." "Fiddlesticks! you are neither the one nor the other, and if I were in your place I should go to a town and try to get on." "To Vienna?" "No," she said thoughtfully, and then as if a new idea had just occurred to her: "Why don't you go to Buda-Pesth?" "To Buda-Pesth? But that is in Hungary: what am I to do there?"