One day she came back in great excitement and exclaimed:
"Oh, if I could only have faith! I think I shall have to administer chloroform to my soul."
We could make no reply to this, and she soon again adapted herself to the quiet tenor of our life.
I was obliged to introduce a change that gave me almost as much trouble as my opponents in the House of Delegates had done. It was necessary to engage some one to replace or assist Rothfuss. I could do nothing without his consent; several whom I had proposed he had rejected, and when I at last obtained Joseph's consent to engage Carl, Rothfuss was scarcely pleased, although he interposed no objections.
Rothfuss always insisted that Carl, while a soldier, had behaved in the same way as the girl who said, "Catch me: I'll hold still."
He had allowed himself to be caught. If Ernst had only been smart enough to do likewise!
For the sake of his affection for Ernst, Carl submitted to this unjust reproach. He was indeed a brave and daring soldier, and felt provoked that during the whole war there had been nothing but marching hither and thither, back and forth, without once meeting the foe.
Rothfuss and Martella had much to say to each other about Ernst, to whom Martella clung with unshaken confidence.
Whenever the letter-carrier came, she was all anxious expectation, but had enough self-control to conceal her feelings for my wife's sake.
My wife never mentioned Ernst's name, but ever since the day on which news had come from him, her sleep had been restless.