mount on a stone, and wave her handkerchief. Her mother was left in the avenue, and would not go down; Petra stood waving her handkerchief; higher and higher she waved it, but no one waved to her in return.
She could endure no more, and wept so violently that she was forced to take the upper road home. Her mother went with her, but walked by her side in silence. The loft chamber her mother had this day given her, where she had slept for the first time last night, and where this morning she had put on her new clothes, so full of joy, received her this evening dissolved in tears and without a single glance for anything. She would not go down where the sailors and guests had arrived; she took off her confirmation attire, and sat down on her bed until night came on apace, and it seemed to her that to be grown up was the most wretched thing that could happen.
