"You? What will you do?"
"Only a simple thing—have her get married."
"What do you mean?"
"O, Will, to be so wise and yet see nothing," said his wife with her old sweet silvery laugh. "Have you no idea why uncle Schönau was in such a bad humor when we met him in Berlin, and urged him to visit us? Your mother didn't invite him because she feared another proposal; he understood that, and it made him furious. I saw them at Waldhofen the time of our marriage, and I knew he would have been very glad to have a similar ceremony performed for himself, only your mother said him nay. Don't put on such a face, Will; you look exactly as you did the first day I saw you."
Her husband was gazing at her in boundless astonishment. He had never dreamed of such a possibility as his mother marrying again, or his uncle either, for that matter. It struck him now as a most excellent arrangement.
"Marietta, how wise you are!" he said, looking with admiration at the smiling girl, who was beaming with satisfaction at the manner in which her news had been received.
"I'm wiser than you think," she declared triumphantly, "for I have set the wheel going. I took occasion to let uncle Schönau know that if he stormed the fort again, a complete surrender might follow. He said he had no intention of being refused again, but you'll see him sooner than you think. In fact he's in the house now, came half an hour ago, but I determined to say nothing about it before mamma—here he is now!"
The head forester stepped on the terrace just in time to hear the last words.
"Yes, here I am," said Herr von Schönau. "It's all your little wife's fault, Will, that I am at Burgsdorf. I'm here at her suggestion, and if that mother of your's is not obstinate and unreasonable and pig-headed as usual—why I'll marry her."
"I pray to God you may, uncle," answered Will, to whom this summary of his mother's wonted characteristics was very singular, to say the least.