Moskowski hastened to communicate this joyful intelligence to the Rev. Mr. Klausner, who, in the mean time, had again become the daily guest of the Starosta's.
Still greater satisfaction did it afford Moskowski when he read all about the St. Petersburg rising in the newspapers and those implicated therein; and at the same time he frequently met Governor Eskimov, who continued to treat him most affably, and never once inquired about his son or ever alluded to the conspiracy at St. Petersburg, treating it as an affair which did not concern either of them the least bit in the world. Naturally, Moskowski himself took good care to let the matter alone.
After a very short delay a letter arrived for the Starosta from the Prince von Sonnenburg, in which he informed his dear friend that his only daughter Ingola had that very day before the altar been united by the insoluble bonds of holy matrimony to Squire Casimir, the Starosta's son. Simultaneously, Heinrich sent a letter to his father, circumstantially describing the pomp and splendour of the wedding, after which the happy pair had retired to the ancestral Castle of Sonnenburg. Thence they were to proceed to Italy for the honeymoon, and they proposed to take him, as doctor, along with them.
On hearing this joyful intelligence, old Moskowski attended a plain Mass from mere thankfulness.
Another year had elapsed, when Squire Casimir himself informed his father by letter of a joyful family event. A little son had been born to him, and both mother and child were doing excellently well. He was to be named Maximilian, after his maternal grandfather.
"There you are," cried old Moskowski in triumph to the Rev. Mr. Klausner, "a grandson with the name of Maximilian, a grandson of an Austrian prince! He never can become a boor. Was there ever a Maximilian in the world who came down to that? Never! A fig for all your Jewish prophesies!"
After that there arrived frequent letters from the bride, letters written in a fine, elegant hand, with a soft flowing pen. And in these letters the highly cultured grand dame drew, without end, idyllic pictures of the bliss she shared with her Casimir.
Presently there came an agreeable communication subscribed by the Chancellor of the Imperial Court officially informing the Starosta that his son Casimir had been promoted to the rank of major in the First Imperial Uhlan regiment.
A year later a second joyful family event was announced. "A second, eh?" His name was Stanislaus. To him, at any rate, they gave a good old Polish name.
"Ah, how I should like to see them all!" sighed the old Starosta.