"But, to whom, to whom!" cried the mother.
"Well?" inquired Jenny.
"To that--that--yesterday--Linden is his name, Frank Linden. Here it is down in black and white,--a man that I have hardly seen three times!"
Jenny turned her large and wondering eyes upon Gertrude, who was still standing behind her mother's chair.
"Good gracious, Gertrude," she cried, "what possessed you to think of him?"
"What possessed you to think of Arthur?" asked the young girl, straightening herself up. "How do people ever think of each other? I don't know, I only know that I love him, and I have pledged him my word."
"When, I should like to know?"
"Last evening, in your red room, Jenny,--if you think the when has anything to do with the matter."
"But, so suddenly, without any preparation. What guarantee have you that he--?"
"As good a guarantee at least," interrupted Gertrude, now pale to the lips, "as I should have had if I had accepted Lieutenant von Lowenberg's proposal the other day."