Old Conrad hesitated and looked embarrassed.
“Well, Conrad, what have you thought?”
“I have thought sometimes, sir, perhaps it would be best for you to marry the ‘Swedish Countess’.”
Gellert started slightly, and a light flush mounted to his brow.
“I marry!” he exclaimed; “Heaven protect me from fastening such a yoke upon myself, or putting my happiness in the power of any creature so fickle, vain, capricious, haughty, obstinate, and heartless as a woman. Conrad, where did you get this wild idea? you know that I hate women; no, not hate, but fear them, as the lamb fears the wolf.”
“Oh, sir,” cried Conrad, angrily, “was your mother not a woman?”
“Yes,” said Gellert, softly, after a pause—“yes, she was a woman, a whole-hearted,’ noble woman. She was the golden star of my childhood, the saintly ideal of the youth, as she is now in heaven the guardian angel of the man; there is no woman like her, Conrad. She was the impersonation of love, of self-sacrifice, of goodness, and of devotion.”
“You are right,” said Conrad, softly, “she was a true woman; the entire village loved and honored her for her benevolence and piety; when she died, it seemed as though we had all lost a mother.”
“When she died,” said Gellert, his voice trembling with emotion, “my happiness and youth died with her; and when the first handful of earth fell upon her coffin I felt as if my heart-strings broke, and that feeling has never left me.”
“You loved your mother too deeply, professor,” said Conrad; “that is the reason you are determined not to love and marry some other woman.”