Angela started.
"Ill? May God forbid!"
"At least, I know no other reason that could prevent him from coming. He has become a necessity to me; I seem to miss something."
Angela concealed her uneasiness in true womanly fashion. She busied herself about the room, dusted the furniture, arranged the vases and trimmed the flowers; but one could see that her mind was not in the work.
"Would it not be well, father, to send and inquire after his health?"
"It would if we were certain that he was ill. I only made a conjecture. However, if he does not come to-morrow, I will send Henry over. We owe him this attention; he is sensible, modest, and very intelligent. We find at present in the cities and first families few young men of so little assumption and so much goodness and manliness."
Angela pricked her finger. She had incautiously wandered into the thicket, as if she did not know that roses have thorns.
"Many things tell of his kind-heartedness," she replied, with averted face. "He sends five dollars every week to the old blind woman in Salingen; he often takes the money himself, and comforts the unfortunate creature. The blind woman is full of enthusiasm about him. He bought the cooper a full set of tools, that he might be able to support his mother and seven little sisters."
"Very praiseworthy," said the father.
As Siegwart came home in the evening, Angela met him in the yard. She carried a basket and was about to go into the garden.