The rain beat against the rattling panes and dashed against the leather top of the carriage, and they went so slowly. The young wife gazed out into the misty landscape. The splendor of the blossoms had vanished, the white petals were swimming in the pools in the streets.
"Oh, only one sunbeam!" she thought, the weather oppressed and weighed her down so.
Absurd! How could any one be so influenced by foolish gossip! Mamma always looked on the dark side of everything--and even if she always told the truth, she had been imposed upon by this story. Poor Frank! Now there would be vexation--the first! She would tell him of it playfully--after dinner, when they were alone together, then she would say, "Frank, I must tell you something that will make you laugh. Just fancy, you have a very bitter enemy, and his revenge is so absurd, he declares"--she was smiling now herself--"Yes, that is the way it shall be."
She was just passing the old watch tower. What was she thinking of as she passed this place a few hours before? Oh yes--a crimson flush spread over her countenance--of the cradle in the attic. She could see the old cradle so plainly before her; two red roses were painted on one end, in the middle a golden star, and beneath it stood written: "Happy are they who are happy in their children."
She put her hand in her pocket and took out the note-book--the carriage was crawling so slowly up the hill--she could not remember it all yet, she must read the verses again.
It was a vision he had had of her kneeling before a cradle, singing a cradle-song about the father bringing something home to his son from the green wood.
She let the paper fall. She knew what song he meant--the old nursery song that she had been singing to her godchild when he had heard her from the window outside. He had told her about it and that in that moment he had come quite under her spell.
She pressed the book to her lips. Ah, how far beneath her seemed envy and spite! how powerless they seemed before the expectation of such happiness!
Just then a piece of paper fell down, a piece of blue writing-paper. She picked it up; it was part of a letter on the blank side of which was written in Frank's handwriting:
"Half a hundred-weight grass-seed, mixed," with the address of a manufactory of farming utensils.