“Your niece Lottie?” he said slowly.
“Yes, indeed. And Lottie is a good girl, a very good girl, Herr Pastor; not so young as she has been, perhaps, but you were not born yesterday yourself.”
“No,” he said, “certainly I was not born yesterday.”
“And she would be all the better wife and mother for her thirty years,” continued the match-maker, recklessly subtracting several units from Lottie’s actual attainments. “She is a good worker, too, an excellent cook, and the temper of an angel. And, best of all, Herr Pastor, she has a nice little sum in bank, saved out of her wages. No one knows it, or she’d have offers enough; but Lottie is sharp; she won’t waste her money on any idle good-for-naught. No; but she is tired of living out, and wants a home of her own, and she’d like well enough to be a pastor’s lady. That, you know, gives one a good position.”
“So it does,” said the pastor absently.
“Well, think it over,” said Frau Kellar, rising, “and if it suits you, mention it to Lottie. She’ll stay with you to-day, and you can see what she is for yourself.”
The pastor sat still for a long while after Frau Kellar had left him with his hands upon his knees, gazing into the fire. Presently a tear trickled down his cheek, then another and another. The pastor was weeping the death of his first and only love: for his first marriage had been as business-like a contract as the present proposed arrangement; and his feeling for Dora had been his one romance. But, after all, one cannot live on romance; especially one plus six children, and minus either a wife or a housekeeper. Romance will not mend the broken head or heal the scalded foot: it will not light the kitchen fire or keep the sausages from burning. The pastor might shed a tear or so over his lost golden-haired darling; but business is business, and when the door at last was gently opened, he knew quite well that the buxom figure and smiling face in the doorway were the face and form of his future wife.
“Dinner is ready, Herr Pastor.”
The pastor rose and untied his blue apron.
“Fräulein Lottie,” he said, “this apron belonged to my former wife. I shall not need it, if you are good enough to stay with me: could you, perhaps, make use of it?”