And the walks in the woods, the evenings when he read aloud, and then the furnishing the house! How sweet it was to consult together, to make selections, to buy new things and how delighted they both were when they happened to think of the same things!
So the house was furnished by degrees. Workmen and upholsterers did their best. Aunt Rosa's room alone remained untouched, and the master's cosy room, in which they had passed their first happy weeks together.
And now everything was ready, homelike and comfortable without any pretension. The low rooms were not suited to display costly carved furniture, so with excellent taste they had both chosen only the simplest things.
"By-and-by, when we build a new house, Gertrude," he said, and she assented.
"First we will improve the estate, Frank--it is so pleasant in these dear old rooms."
The garden-hall been fitted up as a dining-room. Close by was a drawing-room with dark curtains and soft carpets; on the walls Uncle Henry's wedding present, two large oil paintings--a sunny landscape and a wintry sea-coast. From behind great green palms stood out a noble bust of Hermes. Sofas, low seats and arm-chairs everywhere, and wherever there was the smallest space it was filled up with a vase of fresh flowers.
Upstairs, next to the master's room, was that of the young wife, where her father's picture now stood behind the work-table, by the window.
The door between the two rooms stood open, and bright striped Turkish curtains drawn back, permitted Gertrude from her place by the window, to see the writing-table at which he was working. And from the window might be seen the wooded mountains beyond the green garden, and farther away still the distant Brocken, half-hidden in the clouds.
The young wife had cleared out all the cupboards; in the kitchen the last new tin had been hung up on the hooks, and shone and sparkled in the bright sunshine as if it were pure silver. In the store-room jars and pots were all full and in order, as she turned the key with a happy smile, and put it into the spick-and-span new key-basket on her arm.
"Come, Frank," she said, after he had been admiring all this splendor, "now we will go through all the rooms again."