Martha, the eldest, was already a grown young lady, but so sweet and kind
that we never feared a rebuff from her; and her friends, too, liked us
little ones.

Martha's contemporaries formed a peculiarly charming circle. There was
the beautiful Emma Baeyer, the daughter of General Baeyer, who afterward
conducted the measuring of the meridian for central Europe; pretty,
lively Anna Bisting; and Gretchen Bugler, a handsome, merry girl, who
afterward married Paul Heyse and died young; Clara and Agnes
Mitscherlich, the daughters of the celebrated chemist, the younger of
whom was especially dear to my childish heart. Gustel Grimm, too, the
daughter of Wilhelm Grimm, was often at our house. The queen of my heart,
however, was the sister of our playmate, Max Geppert, and at this time
the most intimate friend of my sister Paula. The two took dancing lessons
together, and there was no greater joy than when the lesson was at our
house, for then the young ladies occasionally did us the favour of
dancing with us, to Herr Guichard's tiny violin.

Warm as was my love for the beautiful Annchen, my adored one came near
getting a cold from it, for, rogue that I was, I hid her overshoes during
the lesson on one rainy Saturday evening, that I might have the pleasure
of taking them to her the next morning.

She looked at that time like the woman with whom I celebrated my silver
wedding two years ago, and certainly belonged to the same feminine genre,
which I value and place as high above all others as Simonides von Amorgos
preferred the beelike woman to every other of her sex: I mean the kind
whose womanliness and gentle charm touch the heart before one ever thinks
of intellect or beauty.