Our mother had contributed a remarkably handsome Japanese jug which her brother had sent her.
After the banquet we young ones ran races, while the older people rested till coffee and punch were served.

Whether dancing was allowed at the Pfaueninsel I no longer remember, but at the Pichelsbergen it certainly was, and there were even three musicians to play.
And how delightful it was in the wood; how pleasant the rowing on the water, during which, when the joy of existence was at its height, the saddest songs were sung! Oh, I could relate a hundred things of those birthdays in the country, but I have completely forgotten how we got home.

I only know that we waked the next morning full of happy recollections.
In the summer holidays we often took journeys--generally to Dresden, where our father's mother with her daughter, our aunt Sophie, had gone to live, the latter having married Baron Adolf von Brandenstein, an officer in the Saxon Guard, who, after laying aside the bearskin cap and red coat, the becoming uniform of that time, was at the head of the Dresden post office.
I remember these visits with pleasure, and the days when our grandmother and aunt came to Berlin.

I was fond of both of them, especially my lively aunt, who was always ready for a joke, and my affection was returned.

But these, our nearest relatives, in early childhood only passed through our lives like brilliant meteors; the visits we exchanged lasted only a few days; and when they came to Berlin, in spite of my mother's pressing invitations, they never stayed at our house, but in a hotel.