"But Kitty defended you nobly," Henriette said. "She stood like a shield between you and them,—my poor, brave Kitty! Moritz, they tore the clothes from her back and pulled down her hair——"
"This beautiful hair!" the dean's widow said, tenderly, as she stroked the shining waves that rippled back from the girl's brow.
"Well, yes; the furies did not deal very gently with her," Flora admitted, with a frown; "but I must decline taking all the blame for it upon my shoulders. It was mostly due to her mania for wearing stiff silk dresses. Those people envy us our wealth and elegance; her silk dress irritated the women, and they dinned into her ears, and unfortunately into ours also, how her grandmother went barefoot, how the castle miller was once only a mill servant, and amassed the money, now hers, by usury; and various other edifying facts. Kitty's appearance upon the scene greatly increased our danger; their indignation against the wealthy heiress was unbounded. Am I not right, Kitty?"
"Yes, Flora," the young girl replied, in a trembling voice, with a bitter smile. "I must work hard indeed to atone for the wrong done by my grandfather."
While Flora was speaking, the Frau President seemed to dilate with satisfaction. This laying bare of a scandalous pedigree was like music to her ears. She looked fixedly at the councillor. It was impossible that the new-made nobleman should not shrink at the thought that people would point at his wife and whisper everywhere the tale of her descent and of how her fortune was acquired. "Nonsense, Kitty! that sounds too ridiculously sensitive and silly," she said, shaking her head. "What do you propose to do?"
Flora laughed. "Open her safe, of course, and scatter her stocks abroad among the people."
"As Flora did yesterday the contents of her purse in defence of her charming complexion," Henriette remarked, with an air of easy banter. Her rising indignation conquered for awhile her burning desire to see Flora in the dust at the doctor's feet.
"I should never be guilty of such folly," Kitty said, calmly, but seriously, to Flora, who bit her lip at Henriette's remark. "If a curse rests upon the money——"
The councillor's laugh interrupted her. "Never vex yourself about that, child. A curse! I tell you there is a charm about your money; the dividends from some new investments I have just made for you are enormous."
The Frau President's eyelids, usually drooping over her eyes in aristocratic lassitude, opened wide at this expression. The word "dividend" had power to kindle those eyes with an eager glitter which the desire for conquest in her time of youth and beauty could scarcely have called forth.