Her aunt laughed contemptuously: "You are out of your mind! What do you know, I say? What can you do? Have you any idea of housekeeping, cooking, domestic work? You certainly couldn't get a post as a companion. You are not a good musician, you don't read aloud well, your knowledge of foreign languages is practically nil. So how could you earn your living?" She spoke with the bitterest irony, but when she saw the look of despair on Hildegarde's face, sympathy got the better of her, and almost tenderly she put her arm round the girl's neck. "Don't be so sad, it will turn out better than you think. I can quite understand that Fritz's letter has terribly upset you, but he doesn't mean it all. I will talk to your uncle to-day about sending the money. He shall send it, or I will. And now, hold your head high. It is high time for us to go."
"Yes, do go, aunt, but let me stay at home. I am really not in the mood to go to a party."
"What? Hildegarde,"—her aunt thought she could not have heard rightly—"you want to stay at home? That would never do. Especially to-day when the court has promised to put in an appearance, you must not fail to be there. And do you imagine that I had this costly new costume made for you to take it off and put it in your wardrobe? Whatever answer should I give when people inquired after you?"
A sorrowful little laugh played round Hildegarde's mouth.
"Nobody will ask after me; they will be delighted not to see me."
"And what about Lieutenant Winkler? What am I to say to him when he makes inquiries after you?"
Hildegarde looked at her aunt with wide-open eyes.
"Do you not really understand that it is precisely on his account that I don't want to go to the reception? It would be simply impossible for me to talk to him naturally and pleasantly after Fritz's letter and our conversation." Suddenly, however, she changed her mind: "No, you are quite right. I will not allow the day, to which I have so greatly looked forward, to be spoiled."
Her aunt embraced her tenderly: