To complete the charming family picture another figure was now added, in the person of Bernhard's lovely betrothed. She was the daughter of a Herr von Rosen, whose estates were in the neighbourhood of Eichhof. Bernhard and she had been boy and girl lovers. Bernhard, indeed, knew something of society and of other women, but Therese--or Thea, as she was called--knew absolutely nothing of the outside world. Without her being in the least aware of it, the love of the child had grown into the pure devotion of the maiden. It had seemed the most natural thing in the world to be betrothed to Bernhard,--that he should henceforth be the centre around which every thought and hope of her heart should cling, and that he should typify to her all that she could conceive of beauty and excellence.
And now he was at home on leave. She saw him daily, and in May they were to be married.
"Thea is 'fearfully happy,'" said her younger sister Alma, Adela's bosom friend; and the servants at Eichhof, who were wont to consider their verdict as important in such cases, as well as all the neighbouring gentry, rung the changes upon the same theme.
The neighbours were soon offered a special opportunity for admiring and discussing the 'charming Eichhofs,' since very early in the Easter holidays they were bidden to a grand dinner at the castle. The state apartments were thrown open, and worthy representatives of the noblest of the county families--the Hohensteins, the Rosens, the Lindenstadts, and many others--gladly accepted this first invitation issued after the return home of the soldier sons.
And yet the betrothed pair were not on this occasion the cynosure of every eye, the theme of every tongue, as might have been expected. These guests were all either distantly related to one another or intimate from the association of years. One of them, however, appeared to-day for the first time in this exclusive circle, exciting universal attention and remark. This was the young wife of Marzell Wronsky, who, himself a very German of the Germans, had lately, by marrying a distant Polish cousin, revived in the minds of all the memory of his Polish ancestry.
"What do you think of young Madame Wronsky?" was a question often whispered at this dinner behind a lady's fan or in the recess of some window. The answer would consist either of a shrug of the shoulders and an elevation of the eyebrows, signifying 'not much,' or in the whispered reply, "Very elegant, yes, undeniably elegant, but not at all handsome; scarcely good-looking. Why, she has red hair and green eyes, and then she is so very pale."
But when Madame Wronsky came to be discussed after dinner in the smoking-room over a bowl of punch,--her husband having rejoined the ladies,--the opinions expressed concerning her were rather different.
"A striking creature, the Wronsky," was heard from Lieutenant Hohenstein,--"decided air of race; she would create a furor in Berlin."
"A perfect Undine," murmured the Assessor von Schönburg; "coy, cold, and immovable at first, but as soon as she is interested, all fire and passion,--indescribably attractive."
"Schönburg is off on his old romantic track," laughed Lieutenant von Z. "I rather think your fair Undine is quite capable of giving an eager admirer a bath of very cold water; there is something absolutely freezing in her eye at times, and she has a way of throwing back her head that reminds one of an obstinate horse."