Thus gradually the time appointed for the marriage drew near. Flora had neglected to invite her distant half-sister. Henriette wrote that her head was full of a series of fêtes that were being given in her honour, and that with regard to her trousseau and her marriage festivities her whims had almost driven the trades-people to despair. The invalid seemed in great distress of mind; she repeatedly dwelt upon her inability to sustain alone all the bustle and excitement of the approaching marriage. The dean’s widow could be of no assistance to her at that time, since she herself was suffering greatly at the thought of a separation from her nephew, and was often absent-minded and sad. These complaints grew more and more frequent, until one evening a few days before the marriage a telegram arrived which ran, "Come instantly; I am miserable and ill."
No delay was to be thought of; even the doctor’s wife consented that Kitty should go immediately; and the girl herself—she shivered in nervous dread of what was to come, and yet she exulted in the blissful thought that she should see once more the man who was—her future brother-in-law.
Again on a morning in September she found herself in the large room in the castle mill. She had come by the night train, having telegraphed to Franz to meet her. And certainly a mother’s hands could not have prepared everything for her arrival more lovingly than had old Susy. The room, illumined by the green light penetrating the chestnut-boughs before the windows, was redolent with the fragrance of the heliotrope, roses, and mignonette upon the window-sills, fresh white covers had been put upon all the tables, a tempting snowy bed stood in the recess, and upon the large oaken table stood the familiar copper "machine" full of hot coffee. Even the home-made cake was ready strewn with sugar, beside the gilt china cup that had been the pride of the corner cupboard during the lifetime of the old miller’s wife.
Again the girlish tread was heard upon the white scoured floor, and through the open window came the cooing of the doves and the murmur of the distant weir,—she was at home. She would visit her invalid sister from here, and upon no account accept the councillor’s hospitality, in spite of the Frau President’s scorn of "familiar intercourse between the villa and the mill."