"Nonsense! Moritz will be very grateful to me for breaking ground for him. And do you suppose Kitty has not known all about it this long time? Never was there a girl over fifteen whose nerves of sensibility were not electrically aware of a man's preference for her. Whoever denies it is either stupid or a refined coquette." Again she contemplated herself in the mirror, and pulled the curls lower over her brow. "Any one who has observed our youngest's confiding, clinging manner in a certain direction cannot well be mistaken; eh, Kitty,—you understand me?" And from beneath her raised arm she smiled archly at her sister.
"No, I do not understand you," the girl replied, hastily; an undefined mixture of indignation and intuitive dislike stirring within her.
"Come, Kitty, let us go," said Henriette, passing her arm around her sister's waist, to draw her towards the door. "I cannot bear this!" she added, angrily.
"Nonsense! do not be vexed, Henriette," laughed Flora, holding out the jewel-case to Kitty. "Here, my child; do not leave this here, where the servants are coming and going continually."
Like a child, Kitty involuntarily put her hands behind her. "Moritz must take them back," she said, decidedly. "Your grandmother is quite right;—it is an unsuitable gift; such a necklace would not become my neck."
"And you expect me to believe in such naïve unconsciousness?" Flora asked, as if quite out of patience. "Such affectation is absurd in a girl of your age. There is the lace shawl that Moritz gave grandmamma;—she scorns it; she is more sensitive than your sisters, who think it very natural that your gift should outvalue theirs fourfold,—and you pretend not to understand why? Do not be ridiculous! You hear the hammering yonder in the pavilion every day from morning until night. The entire household, down to the very workmen, know that a home is being arranged there for grandmamma, so that the councillor's young wife may preside here alone. Well, little innocence, shall I speak still more plainly?"
Hitherto the young girl had stood motionless, following her sister's words with a dawning comprehension of their meaning, as if some dangerous serpent were slowly uncoiling its slimy folds in her presence. But now her lip curled in a proud smile. "Do not trouble yourself,—at last I understand you," she said, slowly, her astonishment revealing itself in the clear ring of her voice. "You have gone about it far more wisely than did your grandmother to make my further stay in this house impossible."
"Kitty!" Henriette exclaimed. "No, there you are wrong. Flora has been heedless and thoughtless, but she never meant that." She went close to her sister's side and looked tenderly in her face. "And why should such words drive you away from the house, Kitty?" she asked, in a caressing but anxious whisper. "Are you really unconscious of the love so unequivocally displayed for you? See, I have often wished for death,—but if it were possible that you should ever be mistress here in our father's house, I could——"
Kitty extricated herself impatiently from the encircling arm. "Never!" she cried, shaking her head indignantly, her whole maidenly soul in revolt against the consciousness to which she had been so suddenly and rudely awakened.
"Indeed,—never?" Flora repeated. "Perhaps the parti is not sufficiently distinguished, eh? You are waiting for some needy count or prince, who, after the fashion of the day, will come to release, not Dornröschen herself, but her money-bags from the spell. Well, the present time is by no means poor in such marriages! And we know, too, how that unfortunate incumbrance, the wife, usually fares. If you would hear perpetually how your grandfather drove the mill-wagon and your grandmother went barefoot, then marry into some noble family. I really should like to know what you find to object to in Moritz, or rather what can justify you in rejecting his hand. You are very wealthy, to be sure, but we know where your money came from. You are young, but no beauty, child; and as for your talent, which you well know how to bring forward, it is but a spark assiduously fanned into a little flame by ambitious teachers, and will soon be extinguished when they can no longer look to you for the rich reward of their services."