"Why, I never suspected you could take the thing seriously, dear Mary Anne," said he. "If I only thought—"
"And pray, why not, James? I'm sure the Baron's ancient birth—his rank, his fortune—his position, in fact—"
"Of all of which we know nothing," broke in papa.
"But of which you may know everything," said I; "for here, at the postscript, is an invitation to us all to pass some weeks at the Schloss, in the Black Forest, his ancestral seat."
"Or, as he styles it," broke in James, impertinently, "'the very old castle, where for numerous centuries his high-blooded and on-lofty-eminence-standing ancestors did sit,' and where now 'his with-years-bestricken but not-the-less-on-that-account-sharp with-intelligence-begifted parent father doth reside.'"
"Read that again, James," said papa.
"Pray allow me, sir," said I, taking the letter. "The invitation is a most hospitable request that we should go and pass some time at his chateau, and name the earliest day our convenience will permit for the visit."
"He spoke of capital shooting there!" cried James. "He told me that the Auer-Hahu, a kind of black-cock, abounds in that country."
"And I remember, too, that he mentioned some wonderful Steinberger,—a cabinet wine, full two hundred years in wood!" chimed in papa.
I wished, dearest Kitty, that they could have entertained the subject-matter of the letter without these "contingent remainders," and not mix up my future fate with either wine or wild fowl; but they really were so carried away by the pleasures so peculiarly adapted to their own feelings that they at once said, and in a breath too, "Write him word 'Yes,' by all means!"