'

"'No.'

"'Do you dislike him?'

"'No: I am quite indifferent to him.'

"'He is of a very good family and of excellent character,' said my
father.

"'I know all that,' I replied. 'Do you wish me to marry him, papa?'

"'I can't say that I wish you to, my daughter, but if you loved him I
should be pleased for you to have such a husband.'

"I was never more surprised in my life. Then he told me a great many
things about the baron--how universally he was esteemed, what a position
he held in society, how wealthy he was, how honorable and how good.
These things I knew before. They certainly had weight with me in favor
of the baron: I think they would have had with almost any girl. I asked
my father if he had given the baron any encouragement, and he replied
that he had left everything between the baron and myself for settlement.

"The next evening the German came again to woo me with my father's
sanction. He became very earnest, and I told him that I would not, could
not, give him any hope. He asked me if it might ever be otherwise, and I
told him I thought not. 'Well,' he said, 'I shall certainly ask you
again. I return to Germany in April, and I shall hope to carry home the
tidings of my betrothal.'

"It was then late in the winter, and pretty soon we returned to the
country, for father liked to be close to Nature when it burst into its
new life.

"How nice it seemed to be once more in the old house! I soon found
myself interested in my old occupations, and most of all in the care of
the conservatory, which was then all abloom with azaleas and other
spring-flowering plants. There too was the little widow, as sad as ever,
but glad to see me back, and more than ready to resume the old
friendship. We had hardly got into our old routine ways before my father
announced one morning that the baron Dumbkopf was coming down to say
good-bye before leaving for Germany. I knew very well what it all meant,
and I began to think that as it was my father's wish that I should marry
some time, and that as I could hardly find a husband more suited to his
ideas, and that as I probably should never fall in love, I might as well
accept him as anybody. Then I began to think of Arthur. Thoughts of the
two men crossed and recrossed in my mind, closely woven like the threads
in a cloth. I used to go and look at his glove and talk to the little
bird-widow about him, and really was quite angry with myself for having
him so much in my mi