"Sastrow."
"A charming prospect!" said Frau von Osternau when her husband had finished. "If our good-natured uncle Sastrow is so indignant with Bertha von Massenburg, she must have behaved badly. Can you ask me--can you ask Lieschen, Fritz, to make her welcome here for months?"
"You look only on the dark side, Emma. Sastrow says expressly that she can be enchantingly amiable if she chooses."
"Any one who is amiable only when she chooses is not amiable at all," his wife replied. "Indeed, Bertha von Massenburg does not seem to me a fit companion for Lieschen. I am afraid we have been somewhat hasty about this invitation."
"It has been given and accepted, Emma. Bertha is coming to-morrow, and hospitality demands that she be kindly received. Neither you nor Lieschen, I hope, Emma, will forget that."
"Must I play the hypocrite, papa? How can I receive Bertha kindly when I am indignant at her conduct? I think it detestable in her to insist upon marrying that miserable Egon von Ernau when she knows that he does not like her and that he is a worthless man. I cannot tell you, papa, how odious Bertha's greed for wealth seems to me, and you tell me to receive her kindly. I cannot pretend to what I do not feel."
"I do not ask you, dear, to lavish affection upon her or to adopt her as your confidential friend, but to treat her as a relative of the family who has come to live with us for a while. You are no longer a child, Lieschen, and you must learn to fulfil the conventional requirements of society. I never desire you to play the hypocrite, and a courteous silence as to what we are thinking at the moment is not hypocrisy. You must accustom yourself, my dear, not to wear your heart upon your sleeve, and to bridle your tongue."
Lieschen was unaccustomed to so serious an admonition from her father, and she replied, meekly, "I will try, papa," while her mother did not look up from her work, but knitted faster than ever.
All were a little put out of tune by the news of Bertha's arrival, with the exception of the Lieutenant; he expressed the hope that the beautiful Fräulein von Massenburg would put fresh life into the old castle. He took Bertha's part; he could not see how she was to be blamed for wishing to be wealthy for her father's sake. Certainly Lieschen least of all ought to find fault with her frank expression of her sentiments as to wealth. As in royal families, so also in the higher aristocratic circles, marriages were contracted without the sentimental affection talked of in novels; Bertha was only conforming to the laws of good society if she overlooked Egon von Ernau's trifling defects and showed herself ready for a union which would relieve her father from pecuniary embarrassment. Even judging from Herr von Sastrow's prejudiced description, young Ernau was a talented man of unstained honour, and it would be inexcusable folly in Bertha not to overlook any little faults in one so richly endowed.
Although the Lieutenant delivered himself thus with a degree of enthusiasm, no voice was raised in sympathy with him; Frau von Osternau maintained an obstinate silence, seeming to be absorbed in her knitting, Lieschen frankly declared that she could not understand a nature so coldly calculating, and thought it detestable, and all that Herr von Osternau said was that he could not judge Bertha until he had seen her, and that, whatever she might be, no member of his family was justified in showing her anything save kindness; it would be best for the present to drop all discussion of her, and he therefore begged Herr Pigglewitch to go to the piano and soothe their troubled minds.