“Why don’t you say ‘dead’ at once, and not beat about the bush in that stupid way?” interposed the old nurse, who detested the little man’s hemming and hawing over matters which she was in the habit of blurting out roughly without demur.
“No, I like not the ugly word,” suavely expostulated the Burgher. “The great-to-come-for-all-of-us can be better expressed than that! But, to resume my argument, dearest maiden and most gracious lady, this document does not state that the dear son of the house has shaken off this mortal coil entirely as yet.”
“I’d like to shake off yours, and you with it!” said Lorischen angrily, under her breath—“for a word-weaving, pedantic little fool!”
“You mean that there is hope?” asked Madame Dort, looking a bit less tearful, her grief having nearly exhausted itself.
“Most decidedly, dear lady,” said the Burgher. “Does not the letter say so in plain and very-much-nicely-written characters?”
“But, all such painful communications are generally worded, if the writers have a tender heart, so as to break bad news as gently as possible,” answered the widow, wishing to have the faint sanguine suspicion of hope that was stealing over her confirmed by the other’s opinion.
“Just so,” said Burgher Jans authoritatively. “You have reason in your statement; still, dear lady, by what I can gather from this letter, I should think that the Frau or Fraulein Vogelstein who signs it wishes to prepare you for the worst, but yet intimates at the same time that there is room to hope for the best.”
“Ah, I’m glad you say so,” exclaimed the widow joyfully. “Now I read it over, I believe the same; but at first, I thought, in my hurried glance over it, that Fritz was slain, the writer only pretending he was still alive, in order to prepare me for his loss. He is not dead, thank God! That is everything; for, whilst there is life, there’s hope, eh?”
“Most decidedly, gracious lady,” responded the little man with effusion. “If ever I under the down-pressing weight of despondency lie, so I unto myself much comfort make by that happy consolation!”
Madame Dort experienced such relief from the cheering aspect in which the Burgher’s explanation had enabled her now to look upon the news of Fritz’s wound, that her natural feelings of hospitality, which had been dormant for the while, asserted themselves in favour of her timely visitor, who in spite of his curiosity had certainly done her much good in banishing all the ill effects of her fainting fit.