IN extenuation of so unchristian-like an aspiration as the one which
escaped from the lips of Madame Doppeldick at the end of the last
chapter, it must be remembered that she was a woman of great delicacy
for her size. She was so corpulent, that she might safely have gone to
court without a hoop, her arms were too big for legs; and as for her
legs, it passed for a miracle of industry, even amongst the laborious
hard-working inhabitants of Kleinewinkel, that she knitted her own
stockings. It must be confessed, that she ate heartily, drank heartily,
and slept heartily; and all she ate, drank, and slept, seemed to do her
good, for she never ceased growing, at least horizontally, till she
did ample justice to the name which became her own by marriage. Still,
as the bulk of her body increased, the native shrinking, unobtrusive
modesty of her mind remained the same; or rather it became even more
tremulously sensitive. In spite of her huge dimensions, she seemed to
entertain the Utopian desire of being seen by no eyes save those of
her husband; of passing through life unnoticed and unknown; in short
she was a globe-peony with the feelings of a violet. Judge then what
a shock her blushing sensibilities received from the mere idea of the
strange captain intruding on the shadiest haunts of domestic privacy!
Although by birth, education, and disposition, as loyal as the
sunflower to the sun, in the first rash transports of her trepidation
and vexation she wished anything but well to her liege sovereign the
King of Prussia--wondering bitterly why his majesty could not contrive
to have his reviews and sham-fights in Berlin itself; or at least in
Posen, where there were spare beds to be had, and lodgings to let for
single men. Then again, if the Quarter-master had but condescended
to give a quarter’s notice, why, Mr. Doppeldick might have run up
an extra room, or they might have parted off a portion of their own
chamber with lath and plaster--or they might have done a thousand
things; for instance, they might have sold their house and left the
country, instead of being thus taken unawares in their own sanctorum
by a strange gentleman, as suddenly as if he had tumbled through the
roof. “It was too bad--it was really too bad--and she wondered what Mr.
Doppeldick would say to it when he came home.”
[Illustration: “I WISH I WAS WELL THROUGH IT.”]