"For Doctor Hahn, who is to stand with Miss Laura."
"Indeed!" said Hummel, ironically; "matters are going at a great pace. Take your letter over there. Did I not tell you so, Gabriel?" he added, turning to his confidant. "Scarcely reconciled before the tribunal, and at once sponsors together; who may know but that to-morrow morning the old scarecrow himself will come over and offer to be 'hail-fellow-well-met' with me. There again you have the consequences of over-crowding, and of Christianity too. This time my poor child is the victim."
He took the letter into the room and threw it on the table before his wife and daughter.
"This comes from reconciliation, weak women," he cried, tauntingly. "Now you will have nurse, midwife, godfather, and all, about your heels."
The ladies studied the letter, and Laura thought it inconsiderate in her godmother to have chosen just the Doctor for her partner.
"That's to accommodate the sponsor's carriage," exclaimed Mr. Hummel, mockingly, from the corner. "It was made to carry two at once. Now, that fellow Humboldt will come over here in white gloves in order to fetch you to church, and I believe he will have impudence enough to send you a sponsorial present."
"If he did not do so, it would be an insult," replied the wife. "He must do it, or it would give occasion for people to talk. We cannot object to it; he will send a basket of flowers with gloves for the godmother, and Laura will send him in return the pocket-handkerchief, as is the custom among our acquaintances. You know that Laura's godmother thinks a great deal of these things."
"His flowers in our house, his gloves on our fingers, and our handkerchief in his pocket!" said the master of the house, bitterly; "Pray, what are things coming to."
"I beg of you, Hummel," rejoined his wife, displeased, "do not annoy us by finding fault with the civilities which are unavoidable, on such an occasion, and of which no one takes advantage."
"I thank you for your civilities which one cannot avoid, and to which no one attributes anything. Nothing is so insupportable to me, among the people here, as their eternal obeisances before one's face, whilst they pull one to pieces behind one's back."