* * * * * * * *
“But he does not know it, mamma,” said Isa. “Who is to tell him? Oh, mamma, you must tell him.”
“Nay, my dear; but it must be your own present to him.”
“I could not give it him. It is Uncle Hatto’s present Mamma, when I left him I thought that his eye was kind to me.”
“His heart, at any rate, has been very kind.” And then again they looked over the document, and talked of the wedding which must now be near at hand. But still they had not as yet decided how Herbert should be informed.
At last Isa resolved that she herself would write to him. She did write, and this was her letter:—
“Dear Herbert,
“Mamma and I wish to see you, and beg that you will come up to us this evening. We have tidings for you which I hope you will receive with joy. I may as well tell you at once, as I do not wish to flurry you. Uncle Hatto has sent to us a document which admits you as a partner into the bank. If, therefore, you wish to go on with our engagement, I suppose there is nothing now to cause any very great delay.
“Isa.”
The letter was very simple, and Isa, when she had written it, subsided into all her customary quiescence. Indeed, when Herbert came to the Ludwigs Strasse, not in the evening as he was bidden to do, but instantly, leaving his own dinner uneaten, and coming upon the Heines in the midst of their dinner, she was more than usually tranquil. But his love was, as she had told him, boisterous. He could not contain himself, and embraced them all, and then scolded Isa because she was so calm.