“Don’t talk or think of parting,” cried Hamilton, gayly. “I am sure I shall find your father a most worthy person—we shall get on famously together. When do you leave? It will be quite delightful to breathe the country air. I assure you I feel already impatient to be off.”
“On the 24th I purpose leaving Munich,” said Madame Rosenberg, once more drawing her chair towards her scrutoire, and beginning to count her little heaps of money.
“Are those Iron Works romantically situated?” asked Hamilton.
“N—o. They are on the high road at the end of the village; but there is a fine old oak wood quite close to us.”
“Ah! an oak wood,” repeated Hamilton, thoughtfully.
“We have also a garden and orchard behind the house; the smoke from the forge indeed spoils the flowers greatly, but there is an arbour under the trees where we can breakfast, and drink coffee after dinner, in summer—the arbour is quite covered with roses and honeysuckles.”
“Ah, that is delightful!” cried Hamilton, in vision imagining himself sitting with Hildegarde in the rose and honeysuckle arbour.
“But you are forgetting your appointment,” observed Madame Rosenberg, who had been in vain endeavouring to correct a fault in her reckoning.
“A civil way of telling me to leave you in peace,” said Hamilton, laughing.
“Not at all, I assure you. If you have really no appointment, I shall be glad to talk over my plans with you.”