Only a Girl: or, A Physician for the Soul.

by Wilhelmine von Hillern

Elsa looked down and thought for a minute or two, then she sighed and shook her flowing mane, saying, "No, it cannot, cannot be! That man-woman may excite his curiosity, she cannot win his heart! No, no, Elsa has no fear that Lohengrün will be misled by Ortrude! And now to work, that the day may soon come when he will ask, 'Elsa, whose is the face of the wife who sits at table by my side?' Then I shall avert my face and reply, 'That you know best.' Oh, darling brother! dearest sister! he will turn my blushing countenance to him then, and say, 'This is her face!' Oh, I must go: the breath of spring is wafted towards me from my studio. Yes, yes, I feel that the Muses await me there." With these words she rustled and fluttered away to her room.

Frau Herbert looked after her with a sad, almost a compassionate, glance. "Tell me, Edmund," she said to her husband, "did you ever for one moment believe that such a man as Möllner would marry that girl?"

"Why not? There are many more unequal matches made every day: the only thing is to manœuvre the matter skilfully. If poor Elsa had as managing a mother as you were blessed with, the affair would certainly not be beyond the bounds of possibility. But the poor thing has no one to help her but myself, and we men are clumsier at match-making than the most stupid of women."

Frau Herbert looked pained and crushed by this attack upon her mother and herself. She thought it, however, beneath her dignity to reply to it. She only said very quietly, "I am glad, Edmund, that there is one creature in the world for whom you have some regard, or even blind affection. Well, she is your sister. I, too, love the poor thing, but I cannot believe that she will ever succeed in kindling one spark of interest in Möllner's breast."

"You have always regarded her with jaundiced eyes," Herbert went on to say. "You talk as though she were a monster. She is no longer young, but there is still something youthful about her. She is not, it is true, a genius, but her nature is really artistic. She is not pretty, but an enthusiast like Möllner is more observant of inner graces than physical beauty, and he cannot fail to be impressed by her beauty of soul. It certainly is true that he always distinguishes her in society. Does he not always take her to supper when she is unprovided with an escort, as is usually the case? When all the others avoid her, is not Möllner sure to sit and talk with her? Such a conscientious prig as Möllner would not do that unless he had some object in view; and if she has no other charm for him, her undisguised admiration of him would attract him to her, for he has a due amount of vanity, and every one must take pleasure in being so fanatically adored. If it were not for that confounded Hartwich, who knows how far he might be brought! But I will be revenged upon her, she may rely upon that!"

"Why visit your anger upon the innocent? How can it be this stranger's fault that Möllner is more interested by her genius than by our Elsa's sentimental dilettanteism, her perpetual attempts and failures? His courtesy to her in society always seemed to me prompted by his humanity. She certainly makes herself very ridiculous,--you must see that; and a man of Möllner's kindly, chivalric character cannot permit an innocent, harmless girl to be made sport of, and, accordingly, he constitutes himself her protector, and tries generously to indemnify her for the neglect of others. He does not dream that Elsa's vanity builds all kinds of schemes upon his conduct, or he would never forgive himself----"

"Enough, enough!" Herbert interrupted her angrily. "I cannot see how, with the pain in your face, you manage to talk so much. I can understand that Elsa is disagreeable to you because I have educated her, but I cannot understand how, tied to your invalid chair as you are, you have contrived to fall in love with this Möllner. Indeed, if I had not had hopes of marrying him to my sister, I should have broken with the arrogant pedant long ago, for I hate him as much as you women, old and young, adore him."

Frau Herbert looked with a quiet, thoughtful expression at the speaker, who had worked himself into a violent rage, and then she silently resumed her work, suppressing the words that rose to her lips,--for she possessed the rare talent of knowing when to be silent.

Herbert waited for some minutes for a reply which might afford him further opportunity for venting his spleen, but, receiving none, he turned away, and was about to seek his study.

Just then there was a knock at the door, and the postman entered, with a thick square parcel in his hand. Herbert grew pale at sight of it, and his wife too looked sad and sorry.