You see, that gave me food for thought again.
CHAPTER V
What I had dreaded, gentlemen, did not come about.
Evidently, I had underestimated my popularity in the district. My engagement met with general favour, both among the gentry and the rest of the people. Nothing but beaming faces when they shook hands and congratulated me.
To be sure, at such a time the whole world is in a conspiracy to lure a man on still farther along the road to his fate. People are nice and amiable to you and then, just when something threatens to go wrong, they turn on you snapping and snarling.
However that may be, I gradually got rid of my feeling of shame, and behaved as if I had a right to so much youth and beauty.
My old sister's attitude was touching, even though she was the only one whom my marriage would directly injure. On my wedding day she was to retire from Ilgenstein to be shelved at Gorowen, a family home of ours for maiden ladies and dowagers.
She shed streams of tears, tears of joy, and declared her prayers had been heard, and she was in love with Iolanthe before she had seen her.
But what would Pütz have said, Pütz who had always wanted me to marry and had never got me to?
"I'll make up to his son for it," I thought.