Only four of us came to keep Christmas at home, for Martha now lived in
Dresden as the wife of Lieutenant Baron Curt von Brandenstein, the nephew
of our Aunt Sophie's husband. Her wedding ceremony in the cathedral was,
of course, performed by the court-chaplain Strauss.

My grandmother had died, but my Aunt Sophie still lived in Dresden, and
spent her summers in Blasewitz. Her hospitable house always afforded
an atmosphere very stimulating to intellectual life, so I spent more time
there than in my mother's more quiet residence at Pillnitz.

I had usually passed part of the long--or, as it was called, the "dog-
day"--vacation in or near Dresden, but I also took pleasant pedestrian
tours in Bohemia, and after my promotion to the senior class, through the
Black Forest.

It was a delightful excursion! Yet I can never recall it without a
tinge of sadness, for my two companions, a talented young artist named
Rothermund, and a law student called Forster, both died young. We had
met in a railway carriage between Frankfort and Heidelberg and determined
to take the tour together, and never did the Black Forest, with its
mountains and valleys, dark forests and green meadows, clear streams and
pleasant villages, seem to me more beautiful. But still fairer days were
in store after parting from my friends.

I went to Rippoldsau, where a beloved niece of my mother with her
charming daughter Betsy expected me. Here in the excellent Gohring
hotel I found a delightful party, which only lacked young gentlemen.
My arrival added a pair of feet which never tired of dancing, and every
evening our elders were obliged to entreat and command in order to put an