Then he seated himself with old Lohmeier and his daughter at their simple but excellent supper, and again he admired Margaret's adroitness and attention to her household duties, and the cheerful comfort she shed around her.
And he thought to himself how pretty she would look in the rich old farmhouse at Blechow, and how the elder Deyke would rejoice at having such a housekeeper and daughter-in-law. What Margaret thought was her own secret, but she looked supremely happy as she served her father and his guest, and performed all the duties of an attentive housewife, with the skill of an experienced hostess and the grace of a lovely girl.
Thus quiet joy and hopeful happiness prevailed throughout the good burgher house in Langensalza.
The candidate Behrmann visited many of the sick and wounded, and unweariedly spoke eloquent and impressive words of comfort, and he refused all thanks with humility. He advised and ordered in the hospitals; and praises of the pious, gifted, and exemplary young clergyman resounded from every lip.
CHAPTER XXI.
[RECONCILIATION].
Countess Frankenstein sat in the reception-room of her house in the Herrengasse, in Vienna. Nothing had altered in this salon; the prodigious events and the mighty storms that had shaken the power of the House of Hapsburg to its very foundations could not have been suspected from the aspect of this room when unoccupied, so complete was its stamp of aristocratic immutability and perfect repose. There was the same old furniture which had already served several generations, now looking down from their faintly gleaming frames of tarnished gilding upon the doings of their children and grand-children; there was the high, wide chimney-piece, the flames from which had been reflected in the bright, youthful eyes of those who long ago had become staid grandmothers; there was the same clock with its groups of shepherds and shepherdesses which had marked the moment of birth and the moment of death of many a member of the family, and with equal calmness had added second to second in hours of joy or hours of sorrow. Amongst all these objects, lifeless indeed but full of memories, and accustomed to look calmly on the happiness or sadness of generations passed away, sat the living beings of the present, deeply moved and distressed by the terrible and unexpected blow which had fallen on the House of Hapsburg and on Austria.
The old Countess Frankenstein was grave and dignified as ever, but there was a sorrowful expression on her proud, calm face as she sat on the large sofa; beside her, dressed in black, sat the Countess Clam Gallas, whoso tearful eyes were often covered with her embroidered handkerchief. Opposite the ladies sat General von Reischach; his fresh, healthy face glowed brightly as ever, the dark eyes looked out keen and lively beneath his short white hair, but though this expression of jovial cheerfulness could not be banished, there was beyond it a look of melancholy grief. Countess Clara sat beside her mother, leaning back in an arm-chair, and on her young and beautiful face lay a breath of deep sorrow, for she was a true daughter of the proud Austrian aristocracy, and she felt deeply and keenly the humiliation which the ancient banners of the empire had suffered at Königgrätz, but her melancholy was spread but as a light veil over the joy and happiness that filled her dreamy eyes. Notwithstanding all the dangers of Trautenau and Königgrätz, Lieutenant von Stielow had returned unwounded; the war was now as good as ended, she feared no fresh perils for him, and when the war was concluded, preparations for the marriage were to be commenced.
The young countess sat in a dreamy reverie, pursuing the charming pictures unrolled for the future, and hearing little of the conversation carried on around her.
"This disaster is the effect of the incomprehensible regard shown to the clamour of the lower classes," cried Countess Clam Gallas, in a voice trembling with grief and anger. "Benedek received the chief command because he was 'a man of the people;' the officers of noble birth were thus hurt, injured, and passed over; we now see what all this has led to. I have nothing to say against the rights of merit and talent," she continued, "history teaches us that great field marshals have been found among common soldiers, but people should not be pushed forward who have no talent and whose only merit is courage, simply because they are not of distinguished birth! And now they make the aristocracy answerable for the defeat. Count Clam's treatment is an insult to the whole of the Austrian aristocracy."