"I am curious to know if the little Baumhagen will be there," said an officer of Hussars.

"She may stay away for all I care," responded a very blond Referendary.

"She has a way of condescending to one that I can't endure. She is perfectly eaten up with pride."

"She has just refused another offer, as I heard from Arthur Fredericks," cried another.

"She is probably waiting for a prince," snarled a fourth.

"I don't care," said Colonel von Brelow, "you may say what you like, she is a magnificent creature without a particle of provincialism about her. There is race in the girl."

Frank Linden had listened with an interest which had almost awakened a desire in him to take part in the ball. He half promised to appear, took the address of a glove-shop and sat for a couple of hours in lively conversation. After the lonely weeks he had been spending it interested him more than he was willing to confess.

"I am really stooping to gossip," he said, amused at himself. When he went out into the street, darkness had already come down on the short November day, the gas-lamps were reflected back from the pools in the street, the shop-windows were brilliantly lighted, and five long strokes sounded from the tower of St. Benedict's.

He went round the corner of the hotel into the next street, and walked slowly along on the narrow sidewalk, looking at the shops which were all adorned with everything gay and brilliant for the approaching Christmas holidays.

"Good-evening!" said suddenly a timid voice behind him. He turned round. For a moment he could not remember the woman who stood timidly before him, with a yoke on her shoulder from which hung two shining pails. Then he recognized her--it was Johanna.

"I only wanted to thank you so very much," she began, "the s.e.xton brought me the present for the baby."

"And is my little G.o.dchild well?" he asked, walking beside the woman and suddenly resolving to learn something about "her" at any price.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Linden; it is but a weakly thing--trouble hasn't been good for him. But if the gentleman would like to see him--it isn't so very far and I'm going straight home now."

"Of course I should," he said, and learned as he went along, that she carried milk twice a day for a farmer's wife.

"Does the young lady come to see her G.o.dson sometimes?"

"Ay, to be sure!" replied the woman. "She comes and the baby hasn't a frock or a petticoat that she hasn't given him. She is so good, Miss Gertrude. We were confirmed together," she added, with pride.

So her name was Gertrude.

They had still some distance to go, through narrow streets and alleys, before the woman announced that they had reached her house. "There is a light inside--perhaps it is mother, the child waked up I suppose. My mother lives up stairs," she explained, "my father is a shoemaker."

The window was so low that a child might have looked in easily, so he could overlook the whole room without difficulty.

"Stay," he whispered, holding Johanna's arm.

"O goodness! it is the young lady," she cried, "I hope she won't be angry."

But Frank Linden did not reply. He saw only the slender girlish figure, as she walked up and down with the crying child in her arms, talking to him, dancing him till at last he stopped crying, looked solemnly in her face for awhile and then began to crow.

"Now you see, you silly little goosie," sounded the clear girl's voice in his ears, "you see who comes to take care of you when, you were lying here all alone and all crumpled up, while your mother has to go out from house to house through all the wind and rain;--you naughty baby, you little rogue, do you know your name yet? Let's see.

Frank,--Frankie? O such a big boy! Now come here and don't cry a bit more and you shall have on your warm little frock when your mother comes." And she sat down before the stove and began to take off the little red flannel frock.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "She sat down before the stove and began to take off the little red flannel frock."]

"Ask if I may come in, Johanna," said Linden. And the next moment he had entered behind the woman.

A flush of embarra.s.sment came over the young girl's face, but she frankly extended her hand. "I am glad to see you, Mr. Linden--mamma was very sorry that she could not receive you this afternoon. You--"

He bowed. Then she belonged to one of the houses where he had called to-day. But to which one?

"Do you know, I never knew till to-day that you were living in the neighborhood," she continued brightly. "I was standing in our bow-window when you came across the square, and saw you inquiring for our house."

"Then I have the honor to see Miss Baumhagen?" he asked, somewhat disturbed by this information.

"Gertrude Baumhagen," she replied. "Why do you look so surprised?"

With these words she took her cloak from the nearest chair, put a small fur cap on her brown hair and took up her m.u.f.f.

"I must go now, Johanna, but I will send the doctor to-morrow for the baby. You must not let things go so,--you must take better care or else he may have weak eyes all his life."

"Will you allow me to accompany you?" asked Linden, unable to take his eyes off the graceful form. And that was Gertrude Baumhagen!

She a.s.sented. "I am not afraid for myself, but I am sure you would never find your way out of this maze of streets into which my good Johanna has enticed you. This part about here is quite the oldest part of the town. You cannot see it this evening, but by daylight a walk through this quarter would well repay you. I like this neighborhood, though only people of the lower cla.s.s live here," she continued, walking with a firm step on the slippery pavement.

"Do you see down there on the corner that house with the great stone steps in front and the bench under the tree? My grandmother was born in that house, and the tree is a Spanish lilac. Grandfather fell in love with her as she sat one evening under the tree rocking her youngest brother. She has often told me about it. The lilac was in blossom and she was just eighteen. Isn't it a perfect little poem?"

Then she laughed softly. "But I am telling you all this and I don't know in the least what you think of such things."

They were just opposite the small house with the lilac tree. He stopped and looked up. She perceived it and said: "I can never go by without having happy thoughts and pleasant memories. Never was there a dearer grandmother, she was so simple and so good." And as he was silent she added, as if in explanation, "She was a granddaughter of the foreman in grandpapa's factory."

Still nothing occurred to him to say and he could not utter a merely conventional phrase.

She too remained silent for a while. "May I ask you," she then began, "not to give too many presents to the baby--they are simple people who might be easily spoiled."

He a.s.sented. "A man like me is so unpractical," he said, by way of excuse. "I did not exactly know what was expected of me after I had offered myself as G.o.dfather in such an intrusive manner."

"That was no intrusion, that was a feeling of humanity, Mr. Linden."

"I was afraid I might have seemed to you, too impulsive--too--" he stopped.

"O no, no," she interrupted earnestly. "What can you think of me? I can easily tell the true from the false--I was really very glad," she added, with some hesitation.

"I thank you," he said.

And then they walked on in silence through the streets;--Gertrude Baumhagen stopped before a flower-store behind whose great gla.s.s panes a wealth of roses, violets and camellias glowed.

"Our ways separate here," she said, as she gave him her hand. "I have something to do in here. Good-bye, Mr.--G.o.dfather."

He had lifted his hat and taken her hand. "Good-bye, Miss Baumhagen."

And hesitatingly he asked--"Shall you be at the ball to-night?"

"Yes," she nodded, "at the request of the higher powers," and her blue eyes rested quietly on his face. There was nothing of youthful pleasure and joyful expectation to be read in them. "Mamma would have been in despair if I had declined. Good-night, Mr. Linden."

The young man stood outside as she disappeared into the shop. He stood still for a moment, then he went on his way.

So that was Gertrude Baumhagen! He really regretted that that was her name, for he had taken a prejudice against the name, which he had a.s.sociated with vulgar purse-pride. The conversation at the hotel table recurred to him. He had figured to himself a supercilious blonde who used her privileges as a Baumhagen and the richest girl in the city, to subject her admirers to all manner of caprices. And he had found the Gertrude of the church, a lovely, slender girl, with a simple unspoiled nature, possessing no other pride than that of a n.o.ble woman.