His aunt involuntarily withdrew a step from the window; Kitty stood still. "But why are you so decided, Herr Doctor? Why do you desire that Moritz should control me so strictly?" she asked, with great gentleness. "Am I desirous of doing any thing wrong? Ought Moritz to use his authority to prevent me from fulfilling my sisterly duty? I think not. But there is a way out of the dilemma. Let Henriette go with me to Dresden. There my dear Frau Doctor will share with me the charge of her, and that will not harm my nerves." She smiled slightly.
"Well, I will try so to arrange it," he said, decidedly.
"Then I give you my word to be up and away as soon as possible," she rejoined, just as decidedly, with a meaning look, before which his glance fell as though he had been detected in some injustice.
His aunt suddenly leaned from the window and looked him wonderingly in the face,—he was so strangely silent. He stood plucking some withered vine-leaves from the trellis where they had lodged in falling from the vine, and did not open his lips.
"Do you so ardently desire to go?" the old lady asked the girl, kindly, but with some embarrassment.
Kitty drew her veil, which had fallen upon her neck, over her head again, and knotted it beneath her chin. Her face looked like a fresh peach-blossom amid the folds of lace. "Ought I to say 'no' for politeness' sake, madame?" she asked, smiling, in reply. "I think I have had the best of training, but nothing will eradicate certain prejudices and individualities from the hidden corners of my nature. I feel just the same repulsion for my sisters' grandmother to-day as when, years ago, my father used to command me to kiss her hand; hence I constantly come into collision with all kinds of irritating causes which do not exist for others, and which tormented and worried me as a child. And how chilly it has grown in my father's house!"—she shivered,—"there is too much marble beneath my feet; and Moritz has become so frightfully distinguished,"—two roguish dimples appeared in her cheeks,—"I am positively startled and mortified at the sight of my simple undecorated visiting-card. Yes, dear madame, I shall be very glad to return to Dresden, provided Henriette may accompany me; otherwise,"—she turned to the doctor, and the playfulness of her tone was changed to quiet resolution,—"otherwise, I shall do my best to conform myself to my present surroundings, and to remain, even although Moritz should attempt to force me to return to Dresden."
She bade a kindly farewell to the old lady, courtesied slightly to the doctor, and left the garden to go to the castle mill, although twilight was at hand.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
It had grown quite dark; seven had struck by the factory clock, and Kitty was still sitting in the bow-window in the large room at the castle mill. At Susie's entreaty, she had inspected the linen-closet, for the old housekeeper insisted that the miller's wife was not to be trusted, and that "no one could keep their hands off beautiful homespun linen." Then she had, as usual, prepared Susie's evening broth, and put her to bed; for, although much better, she was still very weak and helpless. But the girl had been sitting a long while in the recess of the window, her hands gravely folded on her lap, until the shadows of night wrapped her around. It was pleasanter here than at the councillor's, where there was no cosy talk in the twilight hour as in Dresden. No sooner had the sun set than the servants invariably drew the curtains, the gas was lighted, and its dazzling rays banished the shadows from every corner.
The muffled tick of the old clock against the wall sounded like a measured subterranean knocking, and through the thick green curtain before the glass of the closed door of the recess the night-lamp at Susie's bedside glowed like the eye of some gloomy gnome. What a breathless quiet reigned in the darkness! How intently, when a child, she had listened in such an hour for the rustle and tripping tread of the dusty brownies while Susie told her how the cruel and superstitious lord who built the mill had buried a new-born babe in its foundations and had mixed the mortar for them with precious wine! All these recollections were but faintly present to her now: her eyes were fixed upon the southern window, whence a faint light was still visible in the sky,—upon the spot where the castle miller had breathed his last; and she was thinking of the way in which Dr. Bruck had told her of the verdict passed upon him by the public, and of his self-vindication, to which she now wondered more than ever that he had condescended. Why, even should the whole world insist upon it, she never could believe in a reckless disregard of prudence, an ignorant, unscientific over-estimate of himself, on the part of a man who was the personification of integrity and honour. And the hot blood stirred in her veins, and indignation possessed her, as she remembered the gross terms in which Flora this very afternoon had stigmatized Bruck's medical capacity. What a riddle Flora, admired and adored as she was, had become—once an object to the child Kitty of wondering awe and secret admiration!