It was quite true. Bräsig was walking along the Pümpelhagen road with the Rambows, and was so pleased with the young lady's gentle kindness, that he took no notice of Alick's short answers. He had met Mrs. von Rambow at the parsonage and thought her even prettier and nicer than on the memorable occasion of the dinner-party.
Well might he like and admire her; well might anybody like her who had seen her in the parsonage that day. When she entered the parlour she found the clergyman lying on the sofa weak and ill; he would have risen to receive her, but she would not allow him to do so. Then laying both hands on little Mrs. Behrens' shoulders she entreated the good old lady to help her in her new life, saying that she often needed good advice. After that she went to Bräsig and shook his hand warmly like an old friend.--When Louisa came in shortly afterwards, she greeted her also like an old friend, and could not help looking at her again and again, as if there were always something new to be read in her face, and as she did so she grew thoughtful like a person reading a beautiful book, who cannot turn to a new page before thoroughly understanding the preceding ones.
Mrs. von Rambow found that there were many pages of the book of human life for her to study in that quiet room. Mr. Behrens, with his long experience and loving sympathy for all men; Mrs. Behrens with her great housekeeping talents, her happy nature and true-heartedness; Louisa with her modesty and thoughtfulness, and her pleasure in making acquaintance with Mrs. von Rambow, who bore the same name as that she used to know so well, and which was so dear to her; and then there was Bräsig, who might be looked upon as forming a sort of commentary upon the others to make their meaning clearer, and Mrs. von Rambow read the commentary with as much pleasure as we young rogues used to do the Ass' Bridge ad modum Minellii in Cornelius Nepos. There was so much innocent mirth and affectionate sympathy amongst these people that Mrs. von Rambow felt almost as gay as if she were making one of a party of happy children dancing "kringel-kranz," with Louisa for their queen, round the bole of a shady old tree.
Alick at last joined the happy circle at the parsonage, but what he had just heard had made him too cross to be able to enter into the spirit of what was going on. He disliked the thought of his wife being in such company as he now found her, and was still more put out when Bräsig said: "How d'ye do, Lieutenant von Rambow." Instead of answering, he turned to the clergyman, and addressed a few words to him about his health and the weather, but his manner was so cold that his warm-hearted wife could not bear to see it, and hastily rose to take leave, that the friendliness with which she had been received might not be utterly chilled, and that Alick's manner might have no worse effect than a slight shower of hail on a summer-day.