I was called down a little later and made the acquaintance of the daughter and the French girl. The former spoke German, the latter did not. As I myself did not understand French, my fellow-servant and I spoke English, and spoke it badly. I found out very soon that she was a most superficial girl who hated thoroughly the work we had to do together in the rooms and kitchen. Though she was only seventeen years old she had already flirted a good deal, and whenever we were at work beating the carpets, washing up the dishes, or cleaning the boots and clothes, she told me of the men who had crossed her way and been more or less fatal in her life. After having detailed also the latest of her conquests, a grocer or a chemist's apprentice, she urged me to tell her something about myself. But at that I shook my head decidedly and smiled. What could I have told her? That what made me sometimes so happy and sometimes so sad was a fairy-tale of such wonderful delicacy that she could never have understood it. And when, regardless of my smile and silence, she dived again into the waves of her adventures, I was all the more quiet and worked twice as quickly as she did. So time passed away painfully, yet mingled with the blissful hope that he would come for me some day; unconscious, but not to be shaken, it lived within me, and innumerable times I pictured to myself how it would happen. The bell would ring a short, energetic ring, and he would stand in the kitchen all unexpected and all unannounced. Then I would take him upstairs to my room, show him happily--like a child shows his toys--the little forest below my window, the river and the green fields beyond it, until suddenly he would notice my black dress, my white apron, and the flowing bonnet-strings--badges of my position--would comprehend the endurance of my heart, my hands, and silently take me in his arms. These dreams, however, were the most foolish dreams that I have ever dreamt. By-and-by I learned to know thoroughly the ways of English home-life. Although my mistress was a widow, she gave all sorts of entertainments characteristic of English people, such as tea-parties, picnics, and so forth. It is true that these large and small gatherings doubled my work in every respect, but I tried to compensate myself by catching now and again an English word, in order to enlarge my knowledge of that language, which was poor indeed, since my mistress as well as her daughter generally spoke either French or German. Yet, with much zeal and diligence (I studied in English books deep into the night) I progressed very nicely.