But he threw the card carelessly on the table and kissed her on the forehead.
Spring is delicious when one is happy. The trees in the Niendorf garden put out their leaves one by one, a green veil hung over the budding forests, and violets were blooming everywhere; Gertrude's whole domain was filled with the scent of the blue children of spring. The voice of the young wife sounded through the old house like the note of a lark, and when Frank returned all sunburned from the fields, a white handkerchief waved from the shining windows upstairs, and when he reached the court it was fluttering in her hand on the topmost step.
"You have come at last, dearest," she would cry then.
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.