"A Baumhagen--yes! And she will marry into this old house and the family have consented. Aunt Rosa."
"God's blessing on you! God's richest blessing!" she whispered, but she shook her head and looked at him incredulously. "I shan't sleep a bit to-night," she continued. "I am glad, I rejoice with all my heart, but you might have told me to-morrow. It is done now. Good night, Frank. I am glad indeed; this old house needs a mistress. God grant that she may be a good one." And she pressed his hand as she left him.
He too went to his room. The lamp was burning on the round table and a letter lay beneath it. Ah, true! the long-lost letter! He took it up abstractedly--it was in Wolff's handwriting. He put it down again; what could he want? Some business of course. Should he spoil this happy hour with unpleasant, perhaps care-bringing news? No, let the letter wait--till--but he had already taken it up and broken the seal.
"But he had already taken it up and broken the seal."
It was a long letter and as he read, he bit his lips hard. "Pitiful scoundrel!" he said at length, aloud, "it is well this letter did not reach me sooner, or things would not have happened as they have." And as if shrinking with disgust from the very touch of the paper, he flung it into the nearest drawer of his writing-table.
"Vile wretches, who make the most sacred things a matter of traffic!"
He sat for a long time lost in thought, and a deep furrow marked itself out between his brows. Then he wrote a long letter to his friend, the judge, and gradually his face cleared again--he was telling him about Gertrude.
CHAPTER VII.
"Good morning, Uncle Henry," said Gertrude, who was sitting at her work-table in the bow-window. She rose as she spoke and went to meet the stout little gentleman as he entered.