Aunt Mary flung her hands over her head and my father wrinkled his brow.
“I hope, however, not——” he began, but I did not let him finish.
“Engaged myself to a man, whom I love from my heart, and reverence, and of whom I believe that he will make me completely happy—Baron Fried. v. Tilling.”
My father jumped up!
“What do you say? After all I said to you yesterday.”
Aunt Mary shook her head.
“I would sooner have heard a different name,” she said. “In the first place, Baron Tilling is not a match for you, he cannot have anything; and, in the second, his principles and his views seem to me——”
“His principles and views coincide entirely with mine; and as to looking for ‘a match,’ as it is called, I am not disposed to do so. Father, dearest father of mine, do not look so cruelly at me, do not spoil the great happiness which I feel at this moment! my good, dear, beloved papa!”
“Well, but, my child,” he replied, in a somewhat softened tone, for a little coaxing used always to disarm him, “it is nothing but your happiness which I have in view. I could not feel happy with any soldier who is not a soldier from his heart and soul.”
“But really you have not to marry Tilling,” remarked Aunt Mary, in a very judicious way. “The soldiership is the least matter in question,” she added; “but I could not be happy with a man who speaks in a tone of such little reverence of the God of the Bible, as the other day——”