Only the bridal wreath was fixed in the maiden's hair, then all got into the carriage. The Count embraced his bride, and pressed the first kiss on her lips. "Could I have ventured to hope for such bliss?" said he, with tears: "Was the love of this pure soul to be my lot? The same child to become the joy of my life, whom, years ago, sitting by thy dear father, I rocked on my knees? See, here didst thou take refuge in despair on that tempestuous night. The minister is waiting for us in the same room, where thou didst then confide to thy friend that confession which pierced me like lightning."
Dorothea was so happy, so awakened from pain to delight, that she could speak but little.--The whole province resounded with the wealth of the Count, with the wonderful good fortune of the young lady, and all the neighbourhood witnessed this happy marriage.
When Alfred betrothed himself to Sophia, Baron Wilden also announced his union with Miss Erhard. To his friends, who expressed their surprize at it, he replied: "Look you, good folks, solitude and want of pastime make many things possible; besides my bride has several good qualities, and is grown much merrier than she was formerly. She takes extraordinary pains too about my conversion, and that is no easy matter, considering that, in my fat body, my soul lies so much deeper than with other men. I shall now soon be pious too in my way, only take care, that the thing keeps in fashion nicely, that I may not have to go backwards again some of these days, like a crab."
Some time after Baron Wallen and the Baroness likewise thought it better to unite in matrimony, as he could not obtain any of the daughters, and still the intercourse of this family was indispensable to him.
Alfred lived afterwards a great deal in the house of the Count, whose man of business he was; and Brandenstein often recollected with rapture, how destiny had granted it to him, to find in his wife the pearl of great price, so totally neglected by all her acquaintance and her nearest kindred.