"And is in that miserable old place just as it is?"
"Just as it is. Indeed, the castle miller was too careful a man to allow any of his property to go to ruin; there is not a nail wanting in the house, not a slate missing on the roof."
"Well, I wish the widow Godspeed. Her old-fashioned furniture and the late dean's portrait will suit those walls extremely well,—there will be room enough for her pickle-jars and bake-oven,—and the water for scouring runs past the very door." She affected a slight nervous shiver, and, as though involuntarily, lifted her richly-trimmed skirt, as if from a freshly-scoured floor. "We had better shut the doors," she said, hastily retreating into the room; "the wind blows the smoke over here. Pah!"—she waved her pocket-handkerchief in the air before her face,—"I really believe the worthy woman is baking her everlasting pancakes even before she has a chair in the house to sit down upon. She is never content unless she is cooking." And she closed the folding-doors.
In the mean time, Henriette had quietly left the room. She had started in terror at Flora's whisper, like some sleep-walker who, on awaking, finds himself on the brink of an abyss. She had not spoken since, and had now mounted to the uppermost story of the tower, where the doves and rooks had their nests. Kitty took up her parasol,—she knew that the invalid always desired solitude when she thus withdrew from the society of others; but this room within these thick walls, the oppressive splendour on every side, and her domineering, capricious sister rustling to and fro, had a most depressing effect upon the young girl. The air that Flora breathed always seemed full of inflammable matter. Therefore she determined to pay Susie a visit.
"Just as you please; go to the mill if you like," the councillor said, fretfully, after in vain endeavouring to detain her; "but look here first." He drew aside a heavy Gobelin curtain, and behind it, in a deep recess, stood a new iron safe. "That belongs to you, you lucky child; here is your 'Shake, shake, little tree, gold and silver over me.'" And he passed his hand almost caressingly over the cold iron. "Everything that your grandfather owned of real estate is in there, turned into paper. Those papers are working for you day and night; you may draw incredible sums of money from the world in this quiet corner. The castle miller knew how to grasp fortune at the flood,—his will is proof of that,—but even he could hardly dream how his wealth would increase metamorphosed thus."
"So that you are on the way to become the best match in the country, Kitty, and, like the man in the fairy-tale, can floor your dining-room at your marriage with silver dollars," Flora cried, from the lounge, where she was again reclining, with a book in her hand. "'Tis a pity! Don't be angry, child, but indeed I am afraid you have been drilled in too strait-laced a morality to know how to fling brilliantly abroad your golden shower."
"Wait and see," laughed the young girl. "In the mean time, I have no present right to take one dollar locked up there." She pointed to the safe. "With regard to the castle mill, Moritz, I should like to attain my majority, if only for a single day."
"Does it not suit you, 'lovely miller maid'?"
"My mill? As well as my vigorous youth, Moritz. But I was in the mill-garden yesterday. It is so large that Franz is obliged to leave all that portion bordering on the high-road uncultivated, for want of time and labourers. He wishes to sell it to you,—it would divide very well into lots for villas, and would be a good investment, he says; but I think cottages ornées might just as well be built elsewhere, and I would rather let your people, who wish to build near the factory, have the land."
"Ah! make them a present of it, Kitty?"