She did not disdain the saving of a tram car fare, although the rebates which she got on the furniture ran into the hundreds.
All that she sent jubilantly to her lover in Berlin, assured that he was provided for some months.
Thus the great misfortune had finally resulted in a blessing. For, without these unhoped for resources, he must have long fallen by the way-side.
Months passed. Her furnishings stood in a storage warehouse, but the house in which they were to live was not yet found.
When she felt that her hour had come—her father and husband thought it far off—she redoubled the energy of her travels, seeking, preferably, rough and ribbed roads which other women in her condition were wont to shun.
And thus, one day, in a springless vehicle, two miles distant from the county-seat, the pains of labour came upon her. She steeled every nerve and had herself carried to the house of the county-physician whose daughter was now tenderly attached to her.
There she gave birth to a girl child which announced its equivocal arrival in this world lustily.
The old doctor, into whose house this confusion had suddenly come, stood by her bed-side, smiling good-naturedly. She grasped him with both hands, terror in her eyes and in her voice.
"Dear, dear doctor! The baby was born too soon, wasn't it?"
The doctor drew back and regarded her long and earnestly. Then his smile returned and his kind hand touched her hair.