Often, indeed, and by a hundred covert hints Dame Neforis gave Paula to
understand that she it was who had alienated her grandchild; there was
nothing for it but to keep the child for whom she yearned, at a distance,
and only rarely reveal to her the abundance of her love. At last her
life was so full of grievance that she was hardly able to be innocent
with the innocent--a child with the child; Mary was not slow to note
this, and ascribed Paula's altered manner to the suffering caused by
her grandmother's severity.

Mary's most frequent opportunities of speaking to her friend were
just before meals; for at that time no one was watching her, and her
grandmother had not forbidden her calling Paula to table. A visit to her
room was the child's greatest delight--partly because it was forbidden--
but no less because Paula, up in her own room, was quite different from
what she seemed with the others, and because they could there look at
each other and kiss without interference, and say what ever they pleased.
There Mary could tell her as much as she dared of the events in their
little circle, but the lively and sometimes hoydenish little girl was
often withheld from confessing a misdemeanor, or even an inoffensive
piece of childishness, by sheer admiration for one who to her appeared
nobler, greater and loftier than other beings.

Just as Paula had finished putting up her hair, Mary, who would rush like
a whirlwind even into her grandmother's presence, knocked humbly at the
door. She did not fly into Paula's arms as she did into those of
Susannah or her daughter Katharina, but only kissed her white arm with
fervent devotion, and colored with happiness when Paula bent down to her,
pressed her lips to her brow and hair, and wiped her wet, glowing cheeks.
Then she took Mary's head fondly between her hands and said: