Brandow his fine estate, and they said he could not even keep Dollan much longer, and that the devil's horses were eating the hair from his head. Did Herr Gotthold believe in such things? "No, no, no," said Gotthold, starting from his corner and sitting erect. Jochen was obliged to fill his pipe, in order to think over quietly an answer so different from what he had expected. Gotthold did not disturb his meditations, but sat in silence, absorbed in thought, dreaming of what was, what might have been and never would be! Never? Yes, but not because fate does not will it; it is because human beings bring on this destiny, because they prepare it for themselves, because in dreams which thicken into realities, in wishes which become acts, they mould their own fate. Did she not, on the evening when she, her father, Curt, and himself, had made an excursion from Dollan to Dahlitz, return home with the wish to become mistress of the place her mother's family had so long possessed; How silently she walked through the stately apartments, while her large sparkling eyes wandered thoughtfully over the dark pictures on walls hung with faded silken tapestry, and the numerous carved ornaments on the chimney-piece, which seemed to her unaccustomed eyes a marvel of costliness! How softly she passed her hand over the damask curtains in the sleeping-rooms, how she buried her glowing face again and again among the flowers in the hot-house, as if intoxicated by the heavy perfume. With what interest she listened to that squint-eyed Hinrich, as he expatiated upon the merits of the noble horses whose light chain halters clanked against the marble cribs, and said it was such a pity for the young master to waste his time at the agricultural school, when he could employ it to so much better advantage here! And how indignantly she looked at the friend who fancied himself so dear to her, when with jealous malice he observed that Carl Brandow might come back all the sooner, since from all accounts he showed the same industry at the college as he had formerly done at school! Afterwards she had haughtily bantered the two friends as they stood on the lawn, but when she sat down in the large wooden swing--the same one where he had just seen the children--resting her beautiful head on one hand, while she carelessly played with the scarlet ribbons on her white dress with the other, and Gotthold approached to put it in motion, she started up and said, laughing, that such an ignorant girl ought not to trouble so learned a gentleman. He did not suspect what bitter earnest was concealed under the jest, and the next morning, when he was obliged to return with Curt to their institution of learning, he slipped under her chamber-door a bit of paper, on which he had written a free translation of one of Anacreon's odes:--