The Major insisted upon the betrothed couple taking a seat in his arbor, saying that Fräulein Milch would soon be down.
The Fräulein was sitting in her chamber alone, for the first time in a sore struggle. The world had been a matter of indifference to her, and only of account so far as some thing could be obtained from it agreeable to the Major. She found the neighborhood very friendly, and she was grateful to the soil, for the Major had a good digestion, and elsewhere he suffered from dyspepsia. She was also grateful to the Rhine, which occasionally furnished a nice fish, and she would nod to the mountains, as if she would say: That's right! just produce good wine; the Major likes to drink it when new, but he mustn't drink too mach of it. Thus was the Fräulein kindly disposed towards man and beast, towards water and plants; it was a matter of indifference that nobody troubled himself about her. She had strenuously declined every intimate connection, and now, through the Professorin, she had been drawn more among people, and had to-day been so deeply mortified. She had known Bella for a long time, although very distantly, and she had disliked her for a long time, although very distantly; but what she had experienced to-day was something wholly novel, and it grieved her sorely.
"O," said she to herself, "O, Frau Countess, you are highly virtuous, virtuous in the extreme, most respectfully virtuous, and beautiful too, you are; but I was once young and beautiful, and no one has ever ventured to give me an uncivil word; I have gone through the streets unattended by a servant, I was my own attendant, my own protector, and my own support. O Frau Countess, you stand very far up on the list of rank, I don't know but that you ought to be addressed as Your Highness! O Frau Countess, take care, there is another list of nobility which the Major ought to give you a glimpse of; no, not he; it would mortify him to death; but Herr Dournay, he must do it. No—nobody—only myself."
And just as she had become composed, the Major again knocked, crying:—
"Fräulein Milch! dear good Rosa," he added in a whisper, "Rosie, Rosalie!"
"What do you want?" the Major heard laughingly asked.
"Oh heavens! it's all right now you are laughing again. There are two good people here, the Architect, and Lina the Justice's daughter; they are betrothed, and have come to receive our congratulations. Do come, join us in the garden, and bring right off a bottle and four glasses."
Fräulein Milch opened the door. The Major asked:—
"Mayn't I know what has been the matter with you?"
"You shall know, sure enough, but don't ask me any more now. So the young people are betrothed, and at the house? I must dress myself up a little, and I'll come down immediately."