He was so
much in earnest that he could not fail to succeed in his attempts to see
her, and he often gave Louisa a great fright by pouncing out upon her,
when she least expected him, and when she was perhaps thinking of * * *
we will not say Frank. Sometimes he was to be seen rearing his long
slight figure out of a bush like a snake in the act of springing,
sometimes his head would appear above the green ears of rye like a seal
putting its head above water, and sometimes as she passed under a tree
he would drop down at her side from the branches where he had been
crouched like a lynx waiting for its prey. At first she did not mind it
much, for she looked upon it as a new form of his silly practical
joking, and so she only laughed and talked to him about some indifferent
subject; but she soon discovered that a very remarkable change had taken
place in him. He spoke gravely and solemnly and uttered the merest
nothings as if they had been the weightiest affairs of state. He passed
his hand meditatively across his forehead as if immersed in profound
thought, and when she spoke of the weather, he laid his hand upon his
heart as if he were suffering from a sudden pain in the side. When she
asked him to come to Guerlitz he shook his head sadly, and said: Honor
forbade him to do so. When she asked him about her father, his words
poured forth like a swiftly flowing stream: The bailiff was an angel;
there never was, and never would be such a man again on the face of the
earth; _his_ father was good and kind, but _hers_ was the prince of
fathers.
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