Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. That was the day of my arrival in Wendhusen, and my first awaking. Almost five years have passed since that morning, and yet it stands out with such clearness before my mind, that I could almost think that it was only yesterday that I—a little inexperienced, homesick girl— awakened under Aunt Edith's green-canopied bed and listened to the conversation that started a thousand questions in my childish heart—as if it were only yesterday that Charlotte kneeled by my bed and promised, with tears and laughter, to love me— this whimsical, dear creature, who seemed composed of smiles and tears, and to whom life suddenly became all tears; but, God be thanked, finally changed back to smiles. Ah, Lottchen, if you have not long known that I love you, I will here make my love's declaration, with the remembrance of all that we mutually experienced and suffered. Also, that day stands out clearly before me, as I then, for the first time, went on a voyage of discovery in the old cloister. I think it was the first day; Aunt Edith went to visit a sick woman in the town. I sat all alone in a deep window niche, looking over the grass plat, away over the high tops of the park trees, behind which the villa lay concealed. It was uncomfortably still in the great building, and outside was no trace of life. At one side lay the Abbess House, with its rows of shuttered windows with deep shadows over the long flight ofsteps, or stairs; the tendrils of the wild vines grew in unrestrained freedom; they had made a net-work over the steps, and hung in great, luxuriant garlands over the massive house door, till it looked as if it might be the entrance to little Brier-rose's enchanted castle. And behind those windows my father had lived a happy child. Over the moss-grown steps, in later years, ...