Franzl opened her eyes wide, and gave a vacant smile, but did not venture to say a word. The landlady tapped her finger on her nose with her magpie laugh, at which Franzl considered it her duty to laugh too. She knew what were proper manners at a coffee lunch. Put a Knuslinger where you will, he will always do the right thing. The landlady now, with all her cleverness, did not seem to know what the right thing was.
"Do you like to see nice linen, Franzl?"
"O my heart! it is the one thing I delight in. If I were rich, I would have seven chests of the finest linen. The weight-maker's wife in Knuslingen has--"
"See there," said the landlady, opening the folding-doors of a great clothes-press and showing packages of linen in dozens, piled up to the ceiling, each tied with a bright-colored ribbon.
"Is that for the hotel?" asked Franzl, when her first exclamations of admiration were over.
"Heaven forbid! that is my Annele's dowry. As soon as my daughters were seven years old I began to put by their wedding outfit, for you never can tell how suddenly it may be needed. Then it is finished, and there is no further need of weaver or seamstress. I only wish the dowry of one of my daughters might remain in the town. It would be pleasant, too, to keep one child near us. Thank Heaven, all my children are well married,--more than well; but seeing their prosperity is better than hearing of it."
A sudden revelation broke upon Franzl's mind. The press with its wealth of linen danced before her eyes, and the blue, red, green, and yellow ribbons melted together into a rainbow. "O dear landlady, may I speak? I beg a thousand pardons if I am presuming, but--O dear Heaven, where such linen is how much else there must be! How would it do--might I say it?--if my Lenz--?"
"I have nothing to say. I am the mother, and my child is well known; you can easily inquire about her. You understand? I think--I don't know--"
"Oh, that is enough, quite enough! I fly home; I have borne him in my arms, I will bear him again hither. But there will be no need, he will leap over the house-tops. I am but a poor silly thing, dear landlady; don't be angry with me."
"You silly? You can draw one's inmost thoughts out of one. You are wiser than the seven wise men. But look you, Franzl, this is all between ourselves; between two trusty friends. I have said nothing; you have made your own discoveries. My husband naturally looks higher; but I should like to keep one child near me, God willing. I tell you honestly--for I know not how to speak falsely or to take back my word--that I do not reject your proposal."