[LINAU].
The mansion-house of Linau, the German corruption of the Polish Linorov, is by no means an imposing residence. Many a wealthy peasant in Saxony can boast of a home grander in appearance than the seat of the ancient noble family which Hugo von Wangen inherited from his father, and in which he was living at present with his young wife and his orphan sister, four years after his marriage. Before his father's death the young couple had occupied a small but comfortable farm-house on the estate, to which Hugo had brought his bride, and where, in accordance with his father's ideas as to the frugality and economy proper to be observed by young people just beginning life, they would still have been residing, had not his father died two years after his son's marriage and bequeathed to him the large manor-house itself.
The old Herr left only two children behind him, a son and a daughter, the latter a child twelve years of age. His will declared his son Hugo the heir of his landed estate, and arranged that the daughter, whose inheritance consisted of a mortgage upon the estate, should find a home in her brother's house.
Hugo von Wangen gladly fulfilled the duty thus imposed upon him. He loved his sister dearly, and needed no injunction from his father to induce him to act the part of an affectionate protector to the girl, whose mother died shortly after her birth, having received her son's solemn promise that he would be a faithful brother to little Clara.
Thus, since the death of his father, Hugo von Wangen, with his wife and sister, had inhabited the manor-house of Linau. It was a low, rambling assemblage of buildings, quite large enough for Hugo's wishes, as it had been for those of his father, who had for many years lived happily in it with his family and kept open house. The guest-chambers were seldom empty, the hospitality of the host had always been generous, and although the style of living had been devoid of pretension to modern elegance, there had never been any lack of comfort in the old Von Wangen manor-house.
For Hugo, every piece of the quaint, old-fashioned furniture, every nook and corner of the house, suggested some incident of his childhood, some tender recollection of the mother and father whose memory he revered; but to his young, pleasure-loving wife the place was odious. She begged that at least the old furniture might be banished, to give place to what was more worthy of a Herr von Wangen. To this Hugo would in no wise consent, and it was with great reluctance that he yielded so far to his wife's wishes as to have the finest of the rooms--one which opened by folding doors upon a large balcony built out over the garden--given over entirely to her and newly furnished and decorated according to her taste. In all the other rooms the old articles of furniture in which he delighted remained untouched, contrasting oddly enough with the gorgeous arrangements of the garden-room, as it was called. Here Bertha spent most of her time, sitting in the balcony when the weather was fine, and receiving there the frequent visitors, who now as formerly were seldom wanting at Linau.
The tin roof of this addition to the garden-room protected it from sun and rain, and that it might be thoroughly warmed in winter Bertha had it enclosed with sashes of glass, which could be opened and closed at will.
Here, oh a sultry day in August, we find Bertha, something more than four years after we last saw her in Osternau. The glass doors and sashes of the balcony were all wide open to admit every breath of air, and the fair mistress of the house was leaning back in an arm-chair, fanning herself lazily with a large lace fan, and evidently wearied and discontent.
There was not the faintest breeze stirring, and, low in the west, dark masses of clouds were slowly gathering; the afternoon sun was already hidden behind them, and they were mounting high above the tall shrubbery that bounded the lawn of the garden below the balcony.
"It is insufferably hot and sultry," Bertha sighed, laying aside the novel she had been reading. "In this wretched climate one either freezes with cold or melts with heat. Such a thing as a fair, mild summer afternoon is positively unknown in this odious Western Prussia."