"Unfortunately," said Molly, still ungraciously. "It is very sad to be a bachelor. Why do you not marry?"

"I?" cried Benno, dismayed at the question.

"Certainly; you must marry as soon as possible."

The words sounded so dictatorial that the doctor did not venture to contradict them; he merely bowed so profoundly that Frau Molly began to feel her irritation evaporate, and she added, in a milder tone,--

"Albert is married and likes it extremely. Do you doubt it?"

"Oh, no, a.s.suredly not," poor Benno hastened to reply; "but I----"

"Well, you, Herr Doctor?" his new relative persisted.

"I am not accustomed to ladies' society, and my manners are very rude,"

he said, sadly,--"very rude, madame,--and that unfits me for social enjoyment."

This confession found favour with Molly. A man who felt his deficiencies so profoundly deserved sympathy. She laid aside her air of severity and rejoined, kindly,--

"They can easily be improved. Come, sit down, Herr Doctor, and let us discuss the matter."

"What! Marriage?" Benno asked, in renewed dismay. This seemed like an immediate settlement of his future life, and he was naturally startled.

"Oh, no: only your manners, for the present. You are anxious to learn, I can see; all you want is some one to advise and train you. I will do it!"

"Oh, madame, how kind you are!" said the doctor, with so touching an expression of grat.i.tude that his instructor of eighteen was entirely won over.

"I am your cousin, and my name is Molly," she rejoined. "We must call each other by our first names; so, Benno, come and sit down by me."

He complied with her invitation rather shyly, but the little lady soon put him entirely at his ease. She questioned him closely, and he soon grew very confidential; he told her about his awkwardness at the Nordheim villa, his consequent mortification, and his desperate but fruitless attempts to attain some degree of ease of manner. As he went on, all his awkwardness vanished and he showed himself as he was, frank, true, intelligent, and kindly. When Gersdorf returned at the end of a quarter of an hour, he found his wife and his cousin talking together like the best of friends.

"I have had the luggage brought here for the present," he said, "and I have sent to know if we can have rooms at the inn."

"Not at all necessary," said Molly; "we can stay here. I am sure Benno will make room for us; will you not, Benno?"

"Of course I will," the doctor exclaimed, eagerly. "I shall move out.

Gronau and I can move into the garret, and you can have the lower rooms, Molly. I will go and have it arranged immediately."

He sprang up, and hurried out to do as he said.

"Benno?--Molly? You seem to have made astonishing progress in a few minutes!"

"Albert, your cousin is a very superior man," Molly declared. "We must befriend the young fellow; it is our duty as his relatives."

Her husband burst out laughing: "The young fellow? Allow me to observe, madame, that he is just twelve years your senior."

"I am a married woman," was the dignified reply, "and he, unfortunately, is a bachelor. But it is not his fault, and I shall have him married as soon as possible."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Gersdorf, "you have scarcely seen poor Benno, and you are already scheming to marry him? I beg you----"

He got no further, for his wife confronted him with an indignant air: "'Poor,' do you call him, because he is to be married? You think marriage a misfortune, then. Is it because your own is unhappy? Albert, what can you mean by such words?"

But Albert only laughed the more; undismayed by his wife's impressive manner, he clasped her in his arms, and said, "I mean that there is only one little woman in the world who can make her husband as happy as I am. Does this explanation content you?"

And Frau Gersdorf was content.

CHAPTER XIV.

MIDSUMMER BLESSING.

The afternoon sun shone merrily down upon the gay a.s.semblage on the green before the inn at Oberstein. Insignificant as the place was, it was a gathering-point for the inhabitants of all the scattered hamlets and farms in the country round, and all who could had come to the festival, which began with the service in church in the morning, while the afternoon was given over to the usual holiday enjoyments.

The St. John's dance, which, in accordance with ancient custom, was always danced in the open air, had been going on for some time upon the improvised dancing-floor in front of the inn. The young peasants, both men and maidens, were engaged in it, while their elders were seated at small tables with their beer-gla.s.ses. The country musicians fiddled away unweariedly, and the children played hide-and-seek and ran hither and thither among the happy crowd. It was a lively, merry scene, and its charm was much enhanced by the picturesque holiday costumes of the mountaineers.

The presence of the 'city folk,' who had just appeared, did not in the least disturb the festivities, for the young engineers quartered in Oberstein joined in the dance, and the two swarthy servants brought by the foreign gentleman from Heilborn were objects of admiring wonder for the peasants.

Waltenberg and the Nordheim ladies were seated at a table in the little garden on one side of the inn, and here Herr Gersdorf and his wife joined them. Greatly pleased by this meeting, the entire party was in a very merry mood, with the exception of Frau von Lasberg.

She took no pleasure in any peasant festivities, even as a spectator, and she had, besides, had a slight headache, so she had resolved to decline joining the party. Elmhorst, however, had sent word that it would be impossible for him to escort his betrothed on this occasion, as there had been some damage caused to the lower portion of the railway by a freshet, and he was obliged to drive down to inspect it.

Upon this the old lady had resolved to sacrifice her comfort to her sense of propriety, which would not allow her to leave the two young ladies to be escorted only by Waltenberg, who was not as yet Erna's declared lover. She drove up the mountain with them, suffering an increase of headache in consequence, and now here was Molly, who had been in deep disgrace with the old lady since her marriage.

Molly knew this perfectly well, and took no pains to regain the lost favour. She expressed an ardent desire to join in the dance, declared that the elegant seclusion of the garden was a great bore, and finally proposed to mingle with the peasantry; in short, she nearly drove poor Frau von Lasberg to desperation.

"And if Benno comes, I shall dance with him although it should make Albert jealous," she said, with a glance towards her husband, who was standing with Erna and Waltenberg at the picket-fence looking on at the merriment on the green. "The poor doctor never has a moment's pleasure; just as we were setting out he was called to a patient, fortunately here in Oberstein, so he promised to follow us in half an hour. Alice, I hear that you are now under Benno's care."

The young lady nodded a.s.sent, and Frau von Lasberg remarked, condescendingly, "Alice conforms to the wishes of her betrothed, but I greatly fear that Herr Elmhorst over-estimates his friend when he attaches more value to his diagnosis than to that of our first medical authorities. And there is, at all events, great risk in intrusting his betrothed to the care of a young physician who, by his own confession, has practised almost exclusively among peasants."

"I think Herr Elmhorst perfectly right," Molly declared, with dignity.

"Our cousin can easily compete with the 'first medical authorities,' I a.s.sure you, madame."

Baroness Lasberg smiled rather contemptuously: "Ah, excuse me! I really forgot that Dr. Reinsfeld is now a relative of yours, my dear Baroness."

"Frau Gersdorf, if you please," Molly corrected her. "I am very proud of my husband's name, and of my dignity as a married woman."

"So I perceive!" the old lady remarked, with an indignant glance at the young wife who so paraded her matrimonial satisfaction, and who, nothing daunted, chattered on merrily,--

"What did you think of Benno, Alice? He was perfectly inconsolable for his awkwardness on that first visit. Were you really as annoyed by it as he thinks you were?"

"Your cousin's deportment was certainly not calculated to inspire confidence, Frau Gersdorf," the Baroness remarked, emphasizing the plebeian name; but to her immense surprise she here encountered opposition from her usually pa.s.sive charge. Alice raised her head, and said, with unwonted decision, "Dr. Reinsfeld made a very agreeable impression upon me, and I entirely share Wolfgang's confidence in him."

Molly glanced triumphantly at the old lady, and was about to launch forth in praise of her 'relative,' when the man himself made his appearance.

To-day Benno was clad in his trim Sunday costume, which differed but little from that of the mountaineers of the district, and was generally adopted by gentlemen among the mountains. The gray jacket braided with green and the dark-green hat with its chamois beard became him admirably, setting off his powerful, well-knit frame to the best advantage; and here where all around him was familiar he almost lost his shyness. He greeted his relatives and Erna cordially, and received Waltenberg courteously; even his bow to Frau von Lasberg was quite correct. It was only when he turned to Alice that the composure hitherto so bravely maintained forsook him; he blushed, and stammered, and cast down his eyes. At first he hardly understood what she said to him, hearing only the sweet, gentle voice, as kind in its tone as it had been before in 'fairy-land.' He partially recovered his self-control only when she spoke of her companion. "Poor Baroness Lasberg is suffering from a violent headache, and it has been worse since she sacrificed herself by driving up here with us. Can you suggest a remedy?"

Frau von Lasberg, who was sniffing at her vinaigrette, looked dismayed; she had no idea of intrusting her precious health to this peasant doctor. Reinsfeld modestly suggested that the pain had been increased by the broad sunshine and the noise, and proposed that she should retire for an hour to some cool, quiet room in the inn. He hurried away to call the hostess, who came immediately and conducted the old lady, who really felt quite ill and saw the advisability of taking the rest suggested, to a quiet room on the side of the house that looked away from the revellers.