"Shame!" cried Kathrien, "you do everything in this big world for me, Oom Peter, and you know it. I've got everything any girl's heart could ask."
"Oh, no, you haven't though," sagely contradicted Grimm. "Before you say that, wait till I give you some fine young chap for a husband. Hey, Frederik?"
She drew away from his embrace with gentle impatience.
"Don't, Oom Peter," she begged. "You're always talking about weddings lately. I don't know what's come over you."
"It's nesting time," Grimm defended himself. "Weddings are in the air. And then, I keep thinking of all the linen packed in my grandmother's chest upstairs. We must use it again some day. There, there, little girl! You shan't be teased any more. Only, I'll leave it to you, Fritzy, if she doesn't deserve a grand husband,—this little girl of mine. If for no other reason, to pay for all she's done for me."
"Done for you?" laughed Kathrien. "Truly, I was forgetting that. I do you the great favour of letting you do everything for me."
"Nonsense! Who lays out my linen and brushes my clothes and fixes wonderful little dishes for me, and puts my slippers and dressing gown in front of the fire on cold nights, and puts flowers on my desk every day? And, best of all, Kindchen, who floods this old house of mine with the glory of Youth?"
"Youth?" she mocked with the true scorn of the young for their supreme gift. "Youth can't do very much. What does it amount to?"
"Nothing much," gravely answered her uncle. "Youth, as you say, is not anything worth mentioning. It is only the most priceless and most perishable treasure in God's storehouse. It is only the thing that means Beauty and Strength and Hope. It is the thing we all despise as long as we have it and would give our souls to get back as soon as we have lost it. No, as you say, Youth doesn't amount to much. It is only the nearest approach to Immortality that mortals have ever known. Why, where should I be now,—a grouchy old bachelor like me—without Youth in my house? Why, Frederik, this girl has made me feel kindlier toward all other women."
"Oh, I have, have I?" demanded Kathrien, "that's more than I bargained for."