Madame Dort had received, late that afternoon, a telegram from Fritz, stating that he had reached Bremerhaven; and that he and Eric were just going to take the train, hoping to be with them in Lubeck ere nightfall.
Cause enough, is there not, for all this excitement and expectancy in the household?
Presently, a party of singers pass down the street, singing a plaintive Volkslieder, that sounds, oh so tender and touching in the frosty evening air; and then, suddenly, there is a sound of footsteps crunching the snow on the outside stairway.
Gelert, shaking off poor Mouser’s fraternal embrace most unceremoniously, starts up with a growl, rushing the moment afterwards with a whine and yelp of joy to the rapidly thrown open door; and, here he jumps affectionately up upon a stalwart, bearded individual who enters, trying to lick his face in welcome.
“Fritz!” cries Madaleine.
“Eric!” echoes the mother, the same instant.
“Madaleine!” bursts forth from Fritz’s lips; while Eric, close behind, cries out joyously, “Mother—mutterchen—dear little mother mine!”
The long-expected meeting is over, and the “Brother Crusoes” are safe at home again.
Little remains to be told.
Early in the new year, when winter had given place to spring and the earth was budding forth into fresh life, Fritz and Madaleine were married. The happy pair live on still with good Madame Dort in the little house of the Gulden Strasse as of yore; for, Fritz has settled down into the old groove he occupied before the war, having gone back to rejoin his former employer, Herr Grosschnapper—although, mind you, instead of being only a mere clerk and book-keeper, he is now a partner in the shipbroker’s business:— the little capital which he and Eric gained in their sealing venture to Inaccessible Island, and which Fritz has invested in the concern in their joint names, is amply sufficient to make him a co-proprietor instead of occupying a subordinate position.