"You are a day sooner than you said," she exclaimed, kissing him affectionately. "Well, I shall not complain, I am a few hours richer than I thought."
"How so, mamma?"
"Do you not understand? Do you really not yet know that I am counting the thirty-three days before your marriage--the last days that I shall have you to myself--and that to each one as it goes, I bid a sad farewell? Let me look at you,--my poor child, how you have come back to me! you look as if you had had an illness."
"I have felt miserably, really wretchedly ever since I went away," he admitted, speaking slowly and without looking at her. "Uncle Erich diagnosed either the jaundice or intermittent fever, but it does not amount to anything, I am well again."
"You do not look so," said the Countess, shaking her head. "Take an arm-chair, that seat is very uncomfortable."
He had seated himself upon a low stool at her feet.
"No, no, mamma," he replied smiling, "this seat is all right, and now tell me of what you were thinking as I came towards you. Your thoughts must have been very pleasant!"
"Must you know everything," she replied gaily, "I had no thoughts,--my dreams...." she patted him lightly on the cheek and whispered--"were of my grandchildren."
"Indeed? Perfectly reconciled, then, to my marriage?"
"We must learn to acquiesce in the inevitable, and--and--it really would be delightful to have a chubby little Ossi, in miniature, to pet, and cosset."