“I know it, dear Aunt Sophie. But do not be uneasy on my account. I think the lady with whom I have engaged will be very kind to me. I do, indeed. Certainly during our interview she was very gracious and considerate. She gives me a very large salary, and tells me that my duties will be very light—merely nominal. That I shall have nothing to do for her but to keep her company,” said Lilith, cheerfully.
“‘Nothing to do but to keep her company.’ But that’s the hardest sort of work with some people, my dearie. There I go again, discouraging of you, when I ought to be doing of the very opposite sort of thing. What an old fool I am, to be sure. Don’t mind me, honey, but tell me what this lady’s name is. Don’t you know, dear, I have never heard that yet?”
“I never heard it until about two hours ago. I had actually engaged myself to her before I knew her name,” said Lilith, with a faint smile.
“Lor’! Now that shows how very little you know of the world, and how unfit you are to be thrown, unprotected, upon it! But what is the lady’s name, now you do know it?”
“She is the Baroness Yon Bruyin.”
“Von—Brewing? Brewing? ’Pears to me I’ve heerd that name before—connected with—connected with—some grand wedding to-do at the great cathedral, where the archbishop and ever so many bishops performed the ceremony. Yes, yes, I disremember her name; but she was a great beauty and a great heiress, being an only darter of some rich city banker, rich as creases; and he was a Mr. Brewing, another rich banker, a heap richer than creases; but older than her own father—so old, so old, as never was seen before at a wedding. And they said how, when he went back to Germany and took his beautiful wife, he paid the emperor lots of money to make him a baron, and it was all to please his wife, so she might be a baroness. Yes, yes! I remember now! And so she’s a widow. And the old man is dead! Well, well, well, how things do turn about! Not much use in his getting married to a beautiful young woman and getting himself made a baron, when he was just ready to depart away from this life! Ah me! ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,’ saith the preacher, and it is true!”
Lilith made no reply, and presently Aunt Sophie resumed:
“I see how it is! She don’t like to shut herself up away from society, while she is in her first mourning, as she would have to do if she stayed in this city, where she was a sort of queen; so she is going to travel to amuse herself until the time of fashionable mourning is over, and she wants a bright young thing like you to keep her company! But in a year or two she will be back here, and then we shall see! But there I go again, sinning as fast as I can! I wonder what makes me so uncharitable? I reckon it is because I haven’t been to class-meeting lately. I’ll go this very evening, when my class meets, and I’ll get the brethren to pray for me. It’s a great help.”
And seeing that Lilith had finished her lunch, the old lady arose from the table and began carefully to gather her precious china and to wash it up to put it away.
Lilith went up to her own room, to look over her slender wardrobe, and to think over what she would have to buy for her sea voyage and her European tour.