“Odious person,” continued Hildegarde, turning away, “I can never forgive her for having embittered the last weeks we shall probably ever spend together.”
“Well,” said Crescenz, drying her eyes, “at all events, we shall get on better after my marriage. You know you must have a sort of respect for me then.”
Hildegarde turned round to see if her sister were joking; but Crescenz looked perfectly serious.
“Respect is due to married persons,” she continued, neatly folding up the work which her sister had thrown on the chair. “Mamma says so—and then, you know, I shall be quite another sort of person, when I am the mother of a family——”
Hildegarde laughed unrestrainedly.
“Madame Lustig says I may have a dozen children! They shall all have pretty names—not one of them shall be called Blazius, that I am determined—they shall be Albert, Maximilian, Ferdinard, Adolph, Philibert.”
“Philibert is not a pretty name,” said Hildegarde, interrupting her merrily.
“Don’t you think so? Well, we can choose another, Conrad for instance?”
“Or Oscar?”
“Oh, no, because I should imagine a sort of resemblance to cousin Oscar, and I don’t—quite like him—that is, not very much, though he is my cousin. He is very cross sometimes, indeed almost always to your friend Marie—but, oh! Hildegarde, one very pretty name we have forgotten, and of a very handsome person too—Alfred! Mr. Hamilton, you know—is not Alfred a pretty name?”