"The day of nomination approached. I did not venture to speak with my strictly conscientious husband of the design which I cherished. I had heard much said of Jacobi's excellent character; I was a distracted wife and mother. I sought out Jacobi, and spoke to him out of the depths of my heart, spoke to his sense of right—to his sense of honour; I showed him how the affair stood for us before he disturbed it, by means which could not be justly called honourable. I feared that my words were bitter, but all the more angel-like was it in Jacobi to hear me with calmness. I pictured to him our present condition; told him how he might save us from misery, and besought him to do it.
"My prayer at first was almost wild, and in the beginning Jacobi seemed almost to think it so, but he heard me out; he let me conduct him to the house of his former teacher, saw the consuming anxiety depicted on his pale emaciated countenance; saw that I had exaggerated nothing; he wept, pressed my hand with a word of consolation, and went out hastily.
"The day of nomination came. Jacobi renounced all claims. My husband was elected to the living in T——. Good God! how it sounded in our ears and in our hearts! For a long time we could not believe it. After fifteen years of deceived hopes we hardly dared to believe in such happiness. I longed to embrace the knees of my benefactor, but he was already far distant from us. A few friendly lines came from him, which reconciled my husband to his happiness, and Jacobi's renunciation, and which made the measure of his noble behaviour full. I have not yet been able to thank him; but you, his amiable bride, say to him——"
We omit the outpourings which closed this letter; they proceeded from a warm, noble heart, overflowing with happiness and gratitude.
The needles fell from the fingers of the sisters as the mother, at Louise's request, read this letter aloud, and astonishment, sympathy, and a kind of admiring pleasure might be read in their looks. They all gazed one on the other with silent and tearful eyes.
Gabriele was the first who broke silence: "So, then, we shall keep our Louise with us yet longer," said she gaily, while she embraced her; and all united cordially in the idea.
"But," sighed Leonore, "it is rather a pity, on account of our wedding and our parsonage; we had got all so beautifully arranged."
Louise shed a few quiet tears, but evidently not merely over the disappointed expectation. Later in the evening the mother talked with her, and endeavoured to discover what were her feelings under these adverse circumstances.
Louise replied, with all her customary candour, that at first it had fallen very heavily upon her. "I had now," continued she, "fixed my thoughts so much on an early union with Jacobi; I saw so much in my new condition which would be good and joyful for us all. But though this is now—and perhaps for ever, at an end, yet I do not exactly know if I wish it otherwise; Jacobi has behaved so right, so nobly right, I feel that I now prize him higher, and love him more than ever!"
It was difficult to the Judge not to be more cheerful than common this evening. He was inexpressibly affectionate towards his eldest daughter; he was charmed with the way in which she bore her fate, and it seemed to him as if she had grown considerably.