In the meantime the heroine of the Roman romance, was sitting beside the Countess Lodrin on a small divan in a dim corner of the spacious room, and whispering, "Have you heard?"
"Of course I have! Ossi learned it from your husband; I congratulate you with all my heart," replied the Countess in a low tone, taking the young wife's hand in her own.
"And you understand how very glad I am," whispered Zinka, blushing, and brushing away a tear.
The Countess smiled her own grave beautiful smile, and nodded assent; Zinka moved a little closer to her. "Who should understand it better than you?" she whispered. She felt a positive reverence for the Countess, whose kind and tender treatment of her she could not but regard as a special mark of favour and distinction. The childlike deference of her manner towards the elder lady was very graceful and very winning.
"If--if the good God should grant me a son," she whispered more softly still, and with a deeper blush, "I should like to learn from you how to educate him."
Countess Wjera laid her hand kindly on Zinka's shoulder. "Your husband will be a better teacher there than I can be; that Ossi is what he is is due to the grace of God,--not to me."
"And is it by God's grace alone, that Ossi has preserved so profound and filial a veneration for his mother?"
The Countess took her hand from Zinka's shoulder; the younger woman, startled, gazed into her face.
"It is nothing," said Wjera, with a forced smile, "a pain in my heart--it will soon pass."
Mimi Dey, with Pistasch, was approaching the corner where the Countess and Zinka were sitting, and noticing Wjera's sudden pallor, inquired as to its cause, instantly vaunting the merits of a certain specific, in which she had implicit confidence. As soon as Fräulein Klette observed that the conversation was taking a medical turn, she too joined the group. "Wjera, I know a wonderful remedy; a Swiss physician, gave me the prescription,--it really will cure everything,--everything."