"All the flowers are ruined, Frank," she cried down to him, "what a pity!"

He came up in high good humor. "No money could pay for this rain, darling," he said; "I am a real farmer now, my mood varies according to the weather."

"And mine too!" remarked his wife. "Such a gray day makes me melancholy."

He went towards her as she sat at her writing-table turning over books and papers.

"Just look, Frank," as she held out to him a packet daintily tied up with blue ribbons; "these are all verses of yours, arranged according to order. When we have our silver wedding I shall have them printed and bound. These on cream-colored paper were written during our engagement, and these different sc.r.a.ps, white and blue and gray, were written since our marriage, when you take anything that comes, thinking I suppose that it is good enough for _Mrs._ Gertrude."

She looked up at him with a smile. He bent down over her,

"And now I shall buy a very special kind of paper for my next verses, Gertrude."

"Why?"

"Bright, like the little bundles the storks carry under their wings.

And I shall write on it--"

She grew crimson. "A cradle-song," she finished softly.

He nodded and put her hand to his lips. But she threw both arms round his neck. "Then it would be sweet and home-like, Frank. Then we should love each other better than ever--if that were possible."

"Here, little wife, I wrote this for you today in the field in the rain." He took out his note-book from his pocket and put it in her hand.

"I will just go and see what the judge is about, the rascal," he called back from the door.

And she sat still and read, her face as grave and earnest as if she were reading in the Bible.

She was startled from her reading by the snapping of a whip before the window. She looked out quickly--there stood the Baumhagen carriage; the coachman in his white rubber coat and the cover drawn over his hat, the iron-gray horses black with the drenching rain. She opened the window to see if any one got out. Johanna came out and the coachman gave her a letter with which she ran quickly back into the house.

Gertrude was startled. An accident at home? She flew to the door.

"A letter, ma'am."

She hastily tore it open.

"Come at once--I must speak to you without delay.

"YOUR MOTHER."

Such were the oracularly brief contents of the note.

"Bring me my things, Johanna, and tell my husband."

"Frank," she cried, as he entered, hurriedly, "something must have happened."

"Don't be alarmed," he besought her, though unable quite to conceal his own uneasiness.

"Yes, yes. Oh, if I only knew what it was! I feel so anxious."

He took her things from the servant and put the cloak round Gertrude's shoulders.

"I hope it has nothing to do with Arthur and Jenny. They were very strange to each other, yesterday."

Gertrude looked at him and shook her head. "No, no, they were always like that."

"Then I am surprised that he did not run away long ago," he said, drily.

"Or she," retorted Gertrude tying her bonnet.

"I could not stand such everlasting complaints, Gertrude," said he, b.u.t.toning her left glove.

"Nor I, Frank. Good-bye. You must make my excuses at dinner. G.o.d grant it is nothing very bad."

She looked round the room once more, then went quickly up to her work-table and thrust the note-book into her pocket.

When a few minutes later the landau pa.s.sed out of the great iron gate she put her head out of the window. He stood on the steps looking after her. As she turned he took off his hat and waved it.

How handsome he was, how stately and how good!

She leaned back on the cushions. She felt a vague alarm--it was the first time she had left the house without him. Strange thoughts came over her--how dreadful it would be if she should not find him again, or even--if she should lose him utterly. Could she go on living then?

Live--yes--but how?

It would be frightful to be a widow! Still more frightful if they were to part--one here, the other there, hating each other, or indifferent!

Could Arthur and Jenny, really--? Oh, G.o.d in Heaven preserve us from such woe!

She looked out of the window. The coachman was driving at a dizzy pace.

There lay the city before her in the mist. Again her thoughts wandered, faster than the horses went. She took the note-book out of her pocket to read the verses, but the letters danced before her eyes, and she put it away again.

In the attic at home stood the old cradle in which her father had been rocked, and Jenny, and she herself. The grandmother in the narrow street had had it as part of her outfit. She would get it out for herself if G.o.d should ever fulfil her wish. Jenny's darling had lain in another bed, the clumsy old cradle did not seem suitable in the elegant chamber of the young mother, but in the modest room at Niendorf, where the vines crept about the windows and the big old stove looked so cosy and comfortable, it would be quite in place, just between the stove and the wardrobe in a cosy corner by itself. She smiled like a happy child.

She could not believe that her life could be so beautiful, so rich.

The carriage was now rattling through the city gate; she would be at home in a minute now, and her heart began to beat loudly. If she only knew what it was.

The porter opened the carriage door and she got out and ran up the stairs to Jenny's apartment. The entrance door of her mother's apartment stood open. No one was to be seen and she entered the hall.

How dear and familiar everything looked! Even the tall clock lifted up its voice, and struck the quarter before two. She took off her cloak and went to her mother's room. Here, too, the door was ajar. Just as she was going to enter she suddenly drew back her hand.

"And I tell you, Ottilie, it will be the worst act of your life, if you fling all this in the child's face without the slightest preparation.

Whether it is true or false why should you destroy her young happiness?

There are other ways and means."

It was Uncle Henry. He spoke in a tone of the deepest vexation.

"Shall she hear it from strangers?" cried the voice of her weeping mother; "the whole town is ringing with it, and is she to go about as if she were blind and deaf?"

"I am trembling all over," Gertrude now heard Jenny say; "it is outrageous, we are made forever ridiculous. It was only last evening that I said to Mrs. S----, 'You can't imagine what an idyllic Arcadian happiness has its dwelling out there in Niendorf.'"