31st. Hella and I went to the cemetery to-day. Her father and mother returned to Cracow yesterday evening, and she told her grandmother she was going to spend the morning with me, and I said I was going to the Brs., so we went alone to Potzleinsdorf. Hella went for a walk round the cemetery while I went to darling Mother's grave. I am so unhappy; Hella consoles me as much as she can, but even she can't understand.

January 1, 19—! Of course we did not keep New Year's Eve yesterday, but were quite alone and it was very melancholy. This morning Dr. P. brought Dora and Aunt Dora some roses and he gave me some lovely violets as a New Year's greeting. He is leaving on the 4th, so he is coming here on the evening of the 3rd. I can't say I look forward to it. To-morrow school begins thank goodness. I met a dust cart, that means good luck; Father says it is a scandal the way the dirt carts go on all through the day in Vienna, and that one should see one even on New Year's day at 2 in the afternoon. But still, if it means good luck!

January 2nd. The dust cart did bring good luck. We had a real piece of luck to-day! In the big interval I noticed a little knot of girls in the hall, and suddenly I felt as if my heart would stop beating. Frau Doktor M., I should say Frau Professor Theyer, was standing among them, she saw us directly and held out her hand to us so we kissed it. She has come to visit her parents and her husband is with her; since she did not know for certain whether she would be able to come to the school she had not written either to me or to Hella about it. She is so lovely and so entrancingly loveable. When the bell rang for class and Frau Doktor Dunker came in I saw that she was still standing outside. So I put my handkerchief up to my face as if my nose were bleeding, and rushed out to her. And because I slipped and nearly fell, she held out her arms to me. Hardly had I reached her, when Hella came out and said: "Of course I understood directly; I said you were awfully bad, so I must go and look after you." Then the Frau Professor laughed like anything and said: "You are such wicked little actresses; I must send you back immediately." But of course she did not but was frightfully sweet. Then we begged her to let us stay with her, but she said: "No, no, I've been your teacher here, and I must not encourage you in mischief. But here is a better idea. Would you like to come and see me to-morrow?" "Rather," we both exclaimed. She said she was staying in a hotel, but we must not come alone to a hotel, so she would see us at her parents, in Schwindgasse, and we were to come there at 4 or half past. Then we kissed both her hands and were so happy! To-morrow at 4! Oh dear, a whole night more and nearly a whole day to wait. "If your parents allow you," she said; as if Father or even Hella's grandmother would not allow that! All Father said was: "All right Gretel, but don't go quite off your head first or you won't be able to find your way to Schwindgasse. Is Hella as crazy as you are?" Of course, how can one be otherwise?

January 3rd. Still 2 hours, it's awful, Hella is coming to fetch me at half past 3. In school to-day we kept on looking at one another, and all the other girls thought it must be something to do with a man. Goodness, what do we care about a man now! We had a splendid idea, that we had just time to make a memento for her, since she does not leave until the evening of the 5th. I am having traced on a piece of yellow silk for a book marker an edelweiss and her monogram E. T., the new one of course. Hella is painting a paperknife in imitation of tarsia mosaic. I would rather have done something of that sort too, but I have no patience for such work, so I often spoil it before I've finished. But one can't very well spoil a piece of embroidery. But I shan't get the tracing on the silk back from the shop until half past 3, so I shall have to work all night and the whole day to-morrow.

Evening. Thank goodness and confound it, whichever way you like to take it, the idiot at the shop had forgotten about the bookmarker and I shan't get it until to-morrow morning early. So I'm able to write now: It was heavenly! We had to walk up and down in front of her house for at least half an hour, until at last it was 5 minutes past 4. She was so sweet to us! She wanted to say Sie to us, but we simply would not have it, and so she said Du as she used to. We talked of all sorts of things, I don't know what, only that I suddenly burst out crying, and then she drew me to her b — —, no, I can't write that about her; she drew me to herself and than I felt her heart beating! and went almost crazy. Hella says that I put both my arms round her neck, but I'm sure that's all imagination, for I should never have dared. She has such fascinating hands, and the wedding ring glistens so on her divine ring finger. Of course we talked about the school, and then she suddenly said: Tell me what really happened about those compositions, when half the class deliberately refrained from putting any punctuation marks. "Oh," we said, "that is a frightful cram, it wasn't half the class, but only 6 of us who have a special veneration for you." Then we told her how it all came about. She laughed a little, and said: "Well, girls, you did not do me any particular service. It really was a great piece of impertinence." But I said: "Prof. Fritsch's remarks were 10 times more impertinent, for they related to another member of the staff, and what was worse to you." Then she said: "My darling girls, that often happens in life, that the absent are given a bad reputation, whether justly or unjustly; one is liable to that in every profession." Hella said that the head mistress was not like that or there would have been a frightful row, since the matter had become known in all the High Schools of Vienna. Then Frau Doktor M. said: "Yes, the Frau Direktorin is really a splendid woman." Then there came something glorious, or really 2 glorious things: (1). She gave us some magnificent sweets, better than I have ever eaten before. Hella agrees, and we are really connoisseurs in the matter of sweets. The second thing, even more glorious, was this: after we had been there some time, there was a knock at the door and in came her husband, the Herr Prof., and said: "How are you my treasure?" and to us: "Goodday, young ladies." Then she introduced us, saying: "Two of my best-loved pupils and my most faithful adherents." Then the Herr Prof. laughed a great deal and said: "That can't be said of all pupils." So I said quickly: "Oh yes, it can be said of Frau Doktor, the whole class would go through fire for her." Then he went away, and she said: "Excuse me for a moment," and we could hear quite plainly that he kissed her in the next room, and then she said as she came in again: "Oh well, be off with you, Karl, goodbye." It's a pity his name is Karl, it's so prosaic, and he calls her Lise, and I expect when they are alone he calls her Lieschen, since he is a North German. I must go to bed, it's half past 11 already. To be continued to-morrow. Sleep well, my sweet glorious ecstatic golden and only treasure! God, I am so happy.

January 6th. Thank goodness to-day is a holiday, and we can't go tobogganing because Dora has a chill!!! I got the bookmarker on the 4th, worked at it all day and up till midnight, and yesterday I got up at half past 5, went on working the whole morning, and at 2 o'clock we took our mementoes to the house. Though we should have liked to give them to her ourselves, we didn't, but only gave them to the maid. She said: Shall I show you in? but Hella said: "No, thank you, we don't want to disturb Frau Theyer, and when I reproached her for this she said: Oh no, it was better not; you are quite upset anyhow, you know what she said: But my dear child, you will make yourself ill; you must not do that on my account!" Oh dear, I'm crying so that I can hardly write, but I must write, for there is still so much that's glorious to put down, things that I must never, never forget, even if it should take me a week to write. The great thing is that I shall simply live upon this memory, and the only thing I want in life is that I may see her once more. Of course we took her some flowers on Friday, I lilies of the valley with violets and tuberoses, and Hella Christmas roses. She was delighted, and went directly to fetch 2 vases which her mother brought in. She is as small as Frau Richter, and her hair is grey, she is charming; but she is not in the least like Frau Doktor M. When we said goodbye she offered us still more sweets, but since we were both nearly crying already we did not want to take any more, but she wrapped them nearly all up for us, saying: "To console you in your sorrow." From anyone else it might have sounded ironical, but from her it was simply lovely. There were 17 large sweets, and Hella gave me 9 of them and took only 8 for herself. I shall eat only one every day, so that they will last me 9 days. Joy and sorrow combined!! Hella is not so frightfully in love as I am, and yesterday she said, in joke of course: "It seems to me that your whole world is foundered; I must pull you out, or you'll be drowned." And then she asked me how I could have been so stupid as to use the word honeymoon to her, although she hemmed to warn me. She said it really was utterly idiotic of me, and that the Frau Prof. blushed. I did not notice it myself, but when her husband came in, she certainly did flush up like anything. Hella and I talked of quite a lot of other things of that sort. I should so much have liked to ask her whether she has given up going to church, for I think the Herr Prof. really is a Jew, though he does not look like one. For lots of other men wear black beards. But I did not venture to ask, and Hella thinks it is a very good thing I did not, for one does not talk about such things. I wonder whether she will have a baby? Oh, it would be horrible. Of course she may have entered into a marriage contract, that would have been the best way. However, Hella thinks that the professor would not have agreed to anything of the kind. But surely if he was frantically in love with her . . .

January 1 5th. The girls in our class are frantically jealous. We did not say in so many words that we, alone among them all, had been invited to see her, but Hella had brought one of the sweets she had given us and in the interval she said: This must be eaten reverently, and she cut it in two to give me half. The Ehrenfelds thought it must have been given by some acquaintance made at the skating rink, and Trude said: "Doubly sweetened, by chocolate and love." "Yes," said I, "but not in the sense you imagine." And since she said: "Oh, of course, I know all about that, but I don't want to be indiscreet," Hella said: "I may as well tell you that Frau Doktor M., or I should say the married Frau Prof. Theyer, gave us this sweet and a great many more on the day she had invited us to go and see her." Then they were all utterly kerblunxed and said: "Great Scott, what luck, but you always were Frau Doktor M.'s favourites, especially Lainer. But Lainer always courted Frau Doktor M."

January 17th. The whole school knows about our being invited to see her, the glorious one! I've just been reading it over, and I see that I have left a frightful lot out, especially about her father. When we were leaving, just outside the house door we burst out crying because as I opened the door I had said, For the last time! Just then an old gentleman came up and was about to go in, and when he saw that we were crying, though we were standing quite in the shadow, he came up to us and asked what was the matter. Then Hella said: "We have lost out best friend." Then the old gentleman looked at us for a tremendously long time and said: "I say, do you happen to be the two ardent admirers of Frau Doktor Mallburg? She is my daughter, you know. And then he said: But you really can't go through the streets bathed in tears like that. Come upstairs again with me and my daughter will console you." So we really did go upstairs again, and she was perfectly unique. Her father opened the door and called out: Lieserl, your admirers simply can't part from you, and I found them being washed out to sea in a river of tears. Then she came out wearing a rose-coloured dressing-gown!!! exquisite. And she led us into the room and said: "Girls, you must not look at me in this old rag, which is only fit to throw away." I should have liked to say: "Give it to me then." But of course I could not. And when we made our final goodbye, perhaps for ever, she kissed each of us twice over and said: Girls, I wish you all the happiness in the world!

January 18th. Hella invited me there to-day, to meet Lajos and Jeno. But I'm not going, for Jeno does not interest me in the very least. That was not a real love. I don't care for anyone in the whole world except her, my one and only! Even Hella can't understand that, in fact she thinks it dotty. Father wanted me to go to Hella's to change the current of my thoughts. Of course I hardly say a word about her to anyone, for no one understands me. But I never could have believed that Father would be just like anyone else. It's quite true that I'm getting thin. I'm so glad that we are not going tobogganing to-day because Dora has a chill, a real chill this time. So I am going to the church in Schwindgasse and shall walk up and down in front of her house; perhaps I shall meet her father or her mother. I wrote to her the day before yesterday.

January 24th. I am so happy. She wrote to me by return! This is the second letter I have had from her! At dinner to-day Father said: "Hullo, Gretel, why are you looking so happy to-day? I have not seen you with such a sunny face for a long time." So I answered in as few words as possible: "After dinner I will tell you why." For the others need not know anything about it. And when I told Father vaguely that Frau Prof. Th. had written to me, Father said: "Oh, is that what has pleased you so much. But I have something up my sleeve which will also please you. February 1st and 2nd are Sunday and Monday, you have 2 days free, and if you and Hella can get a day off from school on Saturday we might make an excursion to Mariazell. How does that strike you?" It would be glorious, if only Hella is allowed to come, for her grandmother imagines that the sore throat she had before Christmas was due to the tobogganing on the Anninger, where the sole was torn off her shoe! As if we could help that. Still, by good luck she may have forgotten it; she is 63 already, and one forgets a lot when one is that age.

Evening. Hella may come; it will be splendid! Perhaps we shall try a little skiing. But really Hella is a horrid pig; she said: "All right, I'll come, if you'll promise not to be continually talking about Frau Professor Th. I'm very fond of her too, but you are simply crazy about her." It's really too bad, and I shall never mention her name to the others any more. I am looking forward so to the tobogganing at Mariazell. We've never made any such excursion in winter before. Hurrah, it will be glorious! Oh I do wish the 31st of January were here; I'm frantically excited.



EDITOR'S NOTE

Rita's joyful expectations of tobogganing among glistening snow-clad hills, remained unfulfilled. The rude hand of fate was thrust into the lives of the two sisters. On January 29th their father, suddenly struck down with paralysis, was brought home in an ambulance, and died in a few hours without recovering consciousness.

Torn from the sheltering and affectionate atmosphere of home, separated from her most intimate friend, the young orphan had to struggle for peace of soul in the isolation of a provincial town — — —

THE END