“Ah, Marie,” cried the old woman, as she hurried forward, seized Marie’s hands and covered them with kisses, “how good an angel my Marie is, and how wicked, how abominable an old woman I am! Forgive me, my child, I, too, will endeavor to be better, and to learn to be good and pious from you.”
“As if you were not so already, my dear nurse!” cried Marie, as she entwined her arms lovingly around the old woman, who had seated herself on a stool at her feet and was looking up at her tenderly. “As if you were not the best, the most loving, the kindest and the bravest of women! What would have become of me without you? How could I have survived these two long, terrible years, if you had not stood at my side like a mother? Who has worked with me and kept my little household in good order? Who nursed me when I was sick? Who cheered me in my hours of sadness, and laughed with me in my hours of gladness? You, my dear, kind nurse, you did all this: your noble, honest, brave heart has supported, guarded, and protected me. I thank you for all this; I thank you for your love, and if I should die, my last breath of life and my last thought will be a blessing for my dear, good nurse!”
They held each other in a long and close embrace, and for a time nothing was heard but sighs and suppressed sobbing. Then old Trude released her darling, with a last tender kiss.
“Here we are in the midst of emotions and tears,” said she, “although we had determined to be cheerful and gay, in order that we might give our dear Philip a joyous reception if he should happen to come to-day, and not have to meet him with tear-stained countenances.”
“Do you, then, really consider it possible that he may come to-day?” asked Marie, eagerly.
“Professor Gedicke said we might expect him at any hour,” replied Trude, smiling. “Let us, therefore, be gay and merry; the days of pain and sorrow are gone, and hereafter your life will be full of happiness and joy.”
“Do you really believe so, Trude?” asked Marie, fastening her large luminous eyes in an intent and searching gaze on the pale, wrinkled countenance of her old nurse. She had the courage to smile, and not to falter under the anxious gaze of her darling.
“Certainly I do,” said she; “and why should I not? Is not your lover coming back after a separation of two years? are we not to have a wedding, and will we not live together happily afterward? We are not poor; we have amassed a little fortune by the labor of our hands. To be sure, we cannot keep an equipage for our Marie, but still she will have enough to enable her to hire a carriage whenever she wishes to ride, and it seems to me it is all the same whether we drive with four horses or with one, provided we only get through the dust and mud. But listen, Marie, I have not yet given you all the news, I have something to tell that will be very agreeable.”
“Then tell me quickly, Trude, I love to hear good news.”