des for laughing if she
should hear the cause of your conjugal strife.

"Arthur is very amiable, and obeys at a word. He surprised me with a
Paris dress for the reception yesterday. As soon as he gets out of our
little nest he is like another man. Good-bye, don't take this affair
too tragically.

"YOUR SISTER."

Slowly the young wife took up the other letter; it was in Aunt
Pauline's pointed handwriting and was addressed to Mrs. Baumhagen.

"DEAREST OTTILIE:

"Everything here goes on as usual. I was at your house yesterday;
Sophie is there and had a great moth-hunt yesterday. Your parrot had a
bad eye but it is all right again now. I have heard nothing of
Gertrude; she will let nobody in. I suppose you have heard from her.
There are all sorts of reports about Niendorf going about. Last
evening my husband came home from the club--they say there is a cousin
there who manages the house. Mr. Hanke has seen her in Linden's
carriage--very dark, rather original, and very much dressed. Well, of
course, you know how people will talk, but I will not pour oil on the
fire. I saw Linden too, once, and I hardly knew him; he was coming from
the bank. The man's hair is growing gray about the temples; he looked
like another person, so--how shall I describe it--so run down."

Gertrude dropped the letter and then she sprang up--she shook and
trembled in every limb.

With a powerful effort she forced herself to be calm and to be
reasonable. What did she wish? She had separated from him forever. But
her heart! her heart hurt her so all at once, and it beat so loudly in
the deathly stillness which surrounded her that she thought she could
hear it.

"Johanna!" she shrieked, but no one replied; she was probably out in
the garden or in the kitchen at work.

And what good could she do her? "No, not that, only not that!"

She sat down again in her chair by the window and looked out among the
trees. What would she not give if the woods and the hills would
disappear so that she could look across into that house--into that
room! "A gay little thing is that brown little girl," Johanna had said
the other day. And Gertrude saw her in her mind's eye tripping about
the house, now in the garden-hall, now up the steps, those dear old
worn-out steps. Tap, tap, now in the corridor, the high-heeled shoes
tapped so firmly and daintily on the hard floor; and now at a brown
door--his door.

Might