"Well, I can tell you what he wanted of me--he wanted to question me. He would have liked to look through the key-hole to find out how it looked in your house. But sit down, my dear."
These two understood each other perfectly. Sometimes the old lady drank coffee with Gertrude and then she had many questions to answer. In this way it had come out quite by chance that she had been a schoolmate of Gertrude's grandmother.
Sometimes they went to walk together and Gertrude learned to know the village people, found out who the poor ones were and a little of the history of the place. Aunt Rosa's pictures were rather roughly drawn, she did not like every one, but Linden was her idol next to a young niece of hers.
"He is so nice," she used to say, "he is so courteous to the old as well as the young."
And Gertrude returned the compliment by declaring she could not imagine the house without Aunt Rosa.
To-day, the young mistress of the house could not stay long quietly in the rose-room. It was strange, but she felt anxious about her husband. If only he had had no accident with the new horses, she thought, as she went out on the veranda.
The blooming garden lay quiet and still before her in the mid-day sunshine. Suddenly a shadow came over her face--there, under the chestnut-trees, where the sunbeams broke through the leaves in golden flecks. There was no doubt of it--it was he, the man in Aunt Rosa's room. How happened he to penetrate into the garden? Where had she heard his name before? She started as if she had touched something unpleasant. "Wolff,"--it was the name on the card that came with the flowers on her wedding eve. Yes, to be sure. But she had seen the man, too, somewhere before--where was it? Perhaps in the factory with Arthur, very likely.
She raised her head and her eyes began to sparkle. There was the carriage just turning in at the gate. He was driving and on the front seat beside the expected guest sat Uncle Henry, waving his red handkerchief.
The gentlemen were all in the best of humor--it was a lively meeting.
"It looks something like here now, Frank," said the little judge, clapping Linden on the shoulder and shaking hands with his wife. He was so pleased that he even inquired for Aunt Rosa.