She handed her marriage-certificate to her father with manner as stately as if it were the title to a throne. His hands trembled so he could not grasp it, and it fell to the floor. Levi picked it up.
"Read it to us, Lizzī," he requested.
"No, I want you to see it and read it for yourselves."
Then he read it aloud. They were overjoyed at this confirmation of their faith in her. Peter fell on his daughter's neck and begged her forgiveness. With a kiss she sealed it, already granted.
When she could control her voice she said: "John's mother was opposed to our marriage, and threatened to cut him out of her property. John is dead, or he would have come back to me."
Lizzī had schooled herself, and was able to utter that sentence as she would have told a bit of ordinary news.
"So I never told you, and let mother die without knowin' I wasn't bad, because I don't want John's mother to know he left a wife, for she would cut me off without anything, and after a while I might want to claim her property for John's child."
"Oh!" said Cassi, a vision of wealth gleaming before him.
"Oh!" echoed Matthi, glad of Lizzī's prospects.
"Ah!" ejaculated Levi, seeing ahead a sensational lawsuit that would likely come on by the time he was admitted to practice and make him famous.