and her mother too.

February 9th. Thank goodness Hella is coming back to-morrow, just before
her birthday. Luckily she can eat everything again so I am giving her a
huge bag of Viktor Schmid's sweets with a silver sugar tongs. Mother and
I are going to meet Hella at the station. They are coming by the 8.20.

February 10th. I am so glad Hella is coming to-day. I nearly could not
meet her because Mother is not very well to-day. But Father's going to
take me. Fritzi wanted to come and see Hella to-morrow afternoon, but
she can't. She's an awfully nice girl and her brother is too, but on the
first day Hella is back we must be alone together. She said so too in
the last letter she wrote me. She's been away more than 3 weeks. It's a
frightfully long time when you are fond of one another.

February 15th. I simply can't write my diary because Hella and I spend
all our free time together. Yesterday we got our reports. Of course
Hella has not got one. Except in Geography and History I have nothing
but Ones, even in Natural History although since New Year I have not
done any work in that subject. I detest Natural History. When Hella
comes back to school we are going to ask the _sometime_ S. G. to relieve
us from the labours of looking after the things. Hella is still too
weak to do it. Hella is 13 already and Father says she is going to
be wonderfully pretty. _Going to be_, Father says; but she's lovely
already. She's been burned as brown as a berry by the warm southern sun,
and it really suits _her_, though only her. I can't stand other people
when they are sun-burned. But really everything suits Hella; when she
was so pale in hospital, she was lovely; and now she is just as lovely,
only in quite a different way. Oswald is quite right when he says:
You can measure a girl's beauty by the degree in which she bears being
sunburned without losing her good looks. He really used to say that in
the holidays simply to annoy Dora and me, but he's quite right all the
same.

February 20th. The second half-year began yesterday. They were all
awfully nice to Hella, and Frau Doktor M. stroked her cheeks and put her
arm round her so affectionately. Now for the chief thing. Today was the
Natural History lesson. We knocked at the door and when we went in Prof.
W. said: Ah I'm glad to see you Bruckner; take care that you don't give
us all another fright. How are you? Hella said: "Quite well, thank you,
Herr Prof." And as I looked at her she put on a frightfully serious
face and he said: It seems to me that you've caught your friend's ill
humour.--Hella: "Herr Prof., you are really too kind, but we don't want
to trouble you. What things have we to take to the class-room? And then
we beg leave to resign our posts, for I don't feel strong enough for the
work." She said this in quite a soldierly way, the way she is used to
hear her father speak. It sounded most distinguished. He looked at us
and said: "All right, two of the other pupils will take it over." We
don't know whether he really noticed nothing or simply did not wish
to show that he had noticed. But as we shut the door I felt so awfully
sorry; for it was the last time, the very last time.

February 27th. In Natural History to-day I got _Unsatisfactory_. I
was not being questioned, but when Klaiber could not answer anything I
laughed, and he said: Very well, Lainer, you correct her mistake. But
since I had been thinking of something quite different I did not know
what it was all about, and so I got an Unsatisfactory. _Before_ of
course that would not have mattered; but now since . . . Hella and
Franke did all they could to console me and said: "That does not matter,
it wasn't an examination; he'll _have_ to examine you properly later."
Anyhow Franke thinks that however hard I learn, I shall be well off if
he gives me a Satisfactory. She says no professor can forget _such a
defeat_. For we told her about the silly little fools. She said, indeed,
that we had made it too obvious. That's not really true. But now she
takes our side, for she sees that we were in the right. Verbenowitsch
and Bennari bring in the things now. They are much better suited for it.
Hella's father did not like her doing it anyhow; he says: The porter
or the maidservant are there for that--we never see them all the year
round, that's a fine thing.

March 8th. Easter does not come this year until April 16th. I am going
with the Bruckners to Cilli, outside the town there they have a vineyard
with a country house. Hella needs a change. I am awfully glad. All the
flowers begin to come out there at the end of March or beginning of
April.

March 12th. Hella is not straightforward. We met a gentleman to-day,
very fashionably dressed with gold-rimmed eyeglasses and a fair
moustache. Hella blushed furiously, and the gentleman took off his hat
and said: Ah, Fraulein Helenchen, you are looking very well. How are
you? He never looked at me, and when he had gone she said: "That was Dr.
Fekete, who assisted at my operation."--"And you tell me _that_ now for
the first time?" Then she put on an innocent air and said: "Of course,
we've never met him before," but I said: "I don't mean _that_. If you
knew how red you got you would not tell me a lie." Then she said: "What
am I telling you a lie about? Do you think I'm in love with him? Not in
the very least."--But when one is _not_ in love one does not blush like
that. Anyhow I shan't tell everything now either; I can hold my tongue
too.

March 14th. Yesterday we did not talk to one another so much as usual; I
especially was very silent. When the bell rang at 5 and I had just been
doing the translation Hella came and begged my pardon and brought me
some lovely violets, so of course I forgave her. This is really the
first time we've ever quarrelled. First she wanted to bring me some
sweets, but then she decided upon violets, and I think that was much
more graceful. One gives sweets to a little child when it has hurt
itself or been in a temper. But flowers are not for a child.

March 19th. Frieda Belay is dead. We are all terribly upset. None of us