She began to pace up and down the room. The soft, thick carpet deadened the sound of her footsteps, but the heavy silk rustled after her with an anxious sound.
What humiliations she had to endure daily and hourly from the fact of being a rich girl! She owed everything to the circumstance of having a fortune. Jenny had just now declared to her again that she had only been godmother, because--Ah, no matter, she knew better. Johanna was too modest. But she had not yet recovered from that other blow. A week ago there had been man[oe]uvres in the neighborhood, and the colonel with his adjutant had had his quarters for two days in the Baumhagen house. She could not really remember that she had spoken more than a few commonplace words to the adjutant, and twenty-four hours after the troops had left the city--yesterday--a letter lay before her filled with the most ardent protestations of love and an entreaty for her hand. She had taken the letter and gone to her mother with it, with the words: "Here is some one who wishes to marry my money. Will you write the answer, mamma? I cannot."
Now she was dreading the mention of this letter. She was not afraid that her mother would try to persuade her. No, no, she had always been independent enough not to order her life according to the will of another, but the matter would be discussed and the division between mother and daughter would only be made wider than ever.
She started; the door opened and her sister's voice called: "Do come, Gertrude, I can't make up my mind about that new red."
The young girl crossed the hall and a moment after stood in her mother's drawing-room, before her mother, a small woman with almost too rosy cheeks, and an exceedingly obstinate expression about the full mouth. She sat on the sofa beneath the large Swiss landscape, the work of a celebrated Düsseldorf master--Mrs. Baumhagen was fond of relating that she had paid five hundred dollars for it--and tossed about with her small hands, covered with diamonds, a mass of dress patterns.
"Gertrude," she cried, "this would do for you." And she held out a bit of blue silk. "It is a pity you are so different, it is so nice for two sisters to dress alike."
"What is suitable for a married woman, is not fit for a girl," declared Mrs. Jenny. "Gertrude ought to get married, she is twenty years old."