e day, would surely be
mentioned. He turned over a few volumes. The circumstances he was
looking for was there. How amazed, how overjoyed he was, when he
discovered the strangest coincidence! The day and the year on which he
had planted those trees, was the very day, the very year, when Ottilie
was born.

CHAPTER XV

THE long-wished-for morning dawned at last on Edward; and very soon a
number of guests arrived. They had sent out a large number of
invitations, and many who had missed the laying of the foundation-stone,
which was reported to have been so charming, were the more careful not
to be absent on the second festivity.

Before dinner the carpenter's people appeared, with music, in the court
of the castle. They bore an immense garland of flowers, composed of a
number of single wreaths, winding in and out, one above the other;
saluting the company, they made request, according to custom, for silk
handkerchiefs and ribands, at the hands of the fair sex, with which to
dress themselves out. When the castle party went into the dining-hall,
they marched off singing and shouting, and after amusing themselves a
while in the village, and coaxing many a riband out of the women there,
old and young, they came at last, with crowds behind them and crowds
expecting them, out upon the height where the park-house was now
standing. After dinner, Charlotte rather held back her guests. She did
not wish that there should be any solemn or formal procession, and they
found their way in little parties, broken up, as they pleased, without
rule or order, to the scene of action. Charlotte staid behind with
Ottilie, and did not improve matters by doing so. For Ottilie being
really the last that appeared, it seemed as if the trumpets and the
clarionets had only been waiting for her, and as if the gaieties had
been ordered to commence directly on her arrival.

To take off the rough appearance of the house, it had been hung with
green boughs and flowers. They had dressed it out in an architectural
fashion, according to a design of the Captain's; only that, without his
knowledge, Edward had desired the Architect to work in the date upon the
cornice in flowers, and this was necessarily permitted to remain. The
Captain had arrived on the scene just in time to prevent Ottilie's name
from figuring in splendor on the gable. The beginning, which had been
made for this, he contrived to turn skilfully to some other use, and to
get rid of su