Thus things went on for considerably over a year.  Coming again in contact with people made Effi happy, but it also created within her the desire to renew and extend associations.  Longing for Hohen-Cremmen came over her at times with the force of a true passion, and she longed still more passionately to see Annie.  After all she was her child, and when she began to turn this thought over in her mind and, at the same time, recalled what Miss Trippelli had once said, to wit:  “The world is so small that one could be certain of coming suddenly upon some old acquaintance in Central Africa,” she had a reason for being surprised that she had never met Annie.  But the time finally arrived when a change was to occur.  She was coming from her painting lesson, close by the Zoological Garden, and near the station stepped into a horse car.  It was very hot and it did her good to see the lowered curtains blown out and back by the strong current of air passing through the car.  She leaned back in the corner toward the front platform and was studying several pictures of blue tufted and tasseled sofas on a stained window pane, when the car began to move more slowly and she saw three school children spring up with school bags on their backs and little pointed hats on their heads.  Two of them were blonde and merry, the third brunette and serious.  This one was Annie.  Effi was badly startled, and the thought of a meeting with the child, for which she had so often longed, filled her now with deadly fright.  What was to be done?  With quick determination she opened the door to the front platform, on which nobody was standing but the driver, whom she asked to let her get off in front at the next station.  “It is forbidden, young lady,” said the driver.  But she gave him a coin and looked at him so appealingly that the good-natured man changed his mind and mumbled to himself:  “I really am not supposed to, but perhaps once will not matter.”  When the car stopped he took out the lattice and Effi sprang off.

She was still greatly excited when she reached the house.

“Just think, Roswitha, I have seen Annie.”  Then she told of the meeting in the tram car.  Roswitha was displeased that the mother and daughter had not been rejoiced to see each other again, and was very hard to convince that it would not have looked well in the presence of so many people.  Then Effi had to tell how Annie looked and when she had done so with motherly pride Roswitha said:  “Yes, she is what one might call half and half.  Her pretty features and, if I may be permitted to say it, her strange look she gets from her mother, but her seriousness is exactly her father.  When I come to think about it, she is more like his Lordship.”

“Thank God!” said Effi.

“Now, your Ladyship, there is some question about that.  No doubt there is many a person who would take the side of the mother.”

“Do you think so, Roswitha?  I don’t.”

“Oh, oh, I am not so easily fooled, and I think your Ladyship knows very well, too, how matters really stand and what the men like best.”