GOSSIP.
Bernhard and Lothar returned to Berlin as soon as the holidays were
over, and Hohenstein shortly followed them thither.
"I am glad he has gone," said Adela, one afternoon that she was
spending with her friend Alma Rosen. "I am glad not to have him here
any longer, for he grows more and more tiresome, and it spoils my
enjoyment of everything to see him lounging about and yawning all the
time."
"You ought not to say that so openly, dear child," said Frau von Rosen,
who happened to be in the room, and who thought it her duty to admonish
the motherless girl now and then. "It is sad enough when brothers and
sisters do not agree perfectly, but there is no need to publish such
lack of harmony to the world."
"But indeed I do not care. I am perfectly willing that everybody should
know it," said Adela. "It is the truth, and I detest hypocrisy."
"No one requires hypocrisy from you, my dear," Frau von Rosen replied;
"but there is a very wide difference between hypocrisy and a discreet
reserve. Besides, there are, I think, certain sensations and opinions
that are undesirably strengthened by being put into words."
"Ah, yes, dear Frau von Rosen, it is easy for you to speak so; you know
nothing of such trials," Adela rejoined. "If you had any sons, Thea and
Alma would have their own opinion too of fraternal amenities."
"Ah, Adela, I have always so longed for a brother!" Alma exclaimed.
"When I see Lothar Eichhof he always seems like half a brother; and how
delightful it must be to have a real one!"
"That is because you know nothing about it," said Adela, with a wise
shake of her curls. "I will tell you how my brother Hugo conducts
himself. Let me speak just this once," she went on, turning to Frau von
Rosen; "it is such a relief to speak it all out, and you know I would
not mention it anywhere else. Well, when he comes home he first goes
directly to the stables, and in fact it is there only that he ever
shows a pleasant face. Then he comes into the house, drops into an
arm-chair in the drawing-room, and looks about him with a sneering
expression which he knows I detest. If I chance to be alone with him,
he says, languidly, 'Frightful taste, the furniture of this room! I
really cannot understand why my father does not have this old-fashioned
stuff replaced by something decent. If he will commission me to attend
to it I will see that you have something here really _chic_.' If my
patience gives way and I remind him that the furniture was all of our
mother's selection, and that papa would never think of altering a
single article, he sneers again,--that same odious sneer,--and either
whistles some popular air or remarks, 'Of course not. I, however, never
would live in such a beastly hole. In fact, Rollin is an infernally
tiresome old nest, only fit for breeding horses, or some such colt as
you are!' meaning me. Is that not enough to vex one? And papa is so
kind and good to him, granting all he asks, and getting nothing from
him in return but disappointment and grief."
"But, Adela, your father has great satisfaction in him nevertheless,"
Frau von Rosen observed. "He is an excellent officer, and very popular
with his comrades, as I know from Bernhard."
But Adela would hear nothing of that. "Ah, that indeed!" she exclaimed,
irritably. "You would hear very little more of his popularity if papa
did not give him so much money. Walter says he gambles, and that his
comrades win his money."
"Walter Eichhof says that?" Thea exclaimed. "And how came you, Adela,
to discuss such matters with Walter?"
Adela blushed slightly, and replied that she had happened to speak of
Hugo to Walter because he had been in Berlin and had heard about many
things there.
Frau von Rosen looked grave, and shook her head, but Adela, now fairly
roused, went on unheeding: "I know myself that papa has often to send
him a great deal of money, and is always in a very bad humour for days
afterwards, and very cross to the inspector and the steward and to me.
And it is all Hugo's fault. He alone is to blame----"
"Hush, hush, Adela!" said Frau von Rosen. "If you do not choose to
suppress your own sentiments with regard to your brother, it is at
least your bounden duty to have nothing whatever to say of
circumstances with which you have nothing to do, and which concern your
father and brother only. Of such matters I must distinctly forbid you
to speak here."
Adela stopped, rather startled, but her flushed, indignant face showed
plainly that she thought herself unjustly treated. Frau von Rosen
approached her, and gently laid her hand upon her fair curly head.
"Dear child," she said, softly, "have you not confidence in my
affection for you?"
Adela was silent, evidently a prey to a conflict of feeling.
"I was your mother's friend," Frau von Rosen continued, gently, "and
when I hear you utter such sharp, decided opinions upon matters of
which you are, perhaps, incapable of judging, I cannot help fancying
what your mother would feel if she heard you. Do you think she would be
pleased with you at this moment?"
The tears started from Adela's eyes, and she hastily, almost
passionately, pressed Frau von Rosen's hand to her lips.
"Oh, if my mother were only living!" she exclaimed. "Everything at home
would be so different!"
Frau von Rosen clasped her in her arms and kissed her. "You have a
tender and loving father," she said, softly: "be to him a good daughter
in the true sense of the word."
Adela dried her tears, and smiled at the remembrance of her father.
"Oh, yes, he is very, very kind," she said. "I know he is, even when he
pretends to be angry. I know, too, that he will always do what I want
in the end, if I do not contradict him. He has given me leave to ride
with Walter again if I will only tell him when and where we are going,
and I always like to do that. And then, too, he has let me wear long
dresses at last. Yes, he is the dearest old papa,--but indeed Hugo
spoils him!"
Frau von Rosen was rather shocked at the conversation's taking this
turn, but when she looked into Adela's honest eyes--now gazing so
frankly into her own--she found it impossible to be angry with the
child. She thought it best to take no notice of her last words, and
only said, "Remember, then, always that it is your first duty to
requite your father for all the care and kindness he has lavished upon
his children."
"Oh!" cried Adela, "if papa should ever have a fall from his horse, and
break his leg or anything, I would nurse him day and night, and never
leave his side; but then," she added, rather ruefully, "nothing of that
sort ever happens to him."
Frau von Rosen smiled involuntarily. "There is no need, dear, of any
extraordinary occasion for testifying affection," she said. "The
greatest proof of love lies in overcoming one's self for the
gratification of others. Think of this, Adela dear; you are quite old
enough and sensible enough to know of yourself everything that I can
tell you. Promise me to reflect upon it all. Will you try?"
Adela promised, with a mixture of emotion and of satisfaction with her
own good sense.
Thea and Alma, who had withdrawn to the other end of the room during
this conversation, now came forward and begged Adela to go with them
into the garden.
Frau von Rosen nodded kindly, and the three girls went off together, at
first somewhat embarrassed, but soon talking and laughing together as
usual. The Easter holidays were indeed a fruitful theme for
conversation, and the name of Eichhof occurred very frequently in their
talk.
"Only think," said Alma Rosen, "Lothar told me that Walter wanted to be
a doctor!"
Adela burst into a laugh. "Walter a doctor!" she exclaimed. "What a
delightful idea of Lothar's! Walter a doctor? It is too comical!"
"Only ask Thea; she knows about it too," said Alma.
And her sister added, "Yes, it is true; Walter did get such an idea
into his head, but he has given it up, and there is to be no more said
upon the subject."
"Now I know why Walter has been so queer all through these last
holidays," said Adela. "It is perfectly odious in him not to tell me a
word of it. I will tease him well about it to-morrow if we ride
together."
"Do you often ride together now?"
"Oh, yes. That was a perfectly ridiculous idea of papa's; I soon talked
him out of it. He had consented to our rides even before we went to the
ball at Eichhof. There's one good to be gained from Hugo's being at
home, papa is so full of business at such times that he will almost
always say 'yes' just to be rid of me. I take very few lessons now with
Mademoiselle Belmont, and the good soul is being gradually transformed
from a governess into a companion. I got papa to tell her that she
might look upon herself as rather occupying the latter position. The
only thing to do is to take papa just when he happens to be in a good
humour; but----" She suddenly clapped her hand upon her mouth. "There,
I promised your mother that I would not speak of that. I should like to
know what kind of girls we should all be if I had a mother and you had
a couple of brothers."
"Well, Bernhard soon will be my brother," said Alma.
"Oh, that's very different," rejoined Adela; "made-up brothers like
that never do anything to vex you. I know all about that, for I look
upon Walter Eichhof as a kind of brother, and--but I forgot," she
interrupted herself, hesitating,--"he does vex me sometimes. I'll have
my revenge to-morrow at all events, and I wish to-morrow were here."
Twenty-four hours later this wish of Adela's was fulfilled, and Walter
and she were slowly riding towards the forest, followed at a discreet
distance by the groom with a taste for sandwiches.
"I have been hearing sad tales of you, Walter," Adela began her attack,
"and the saddest part of them is that you never, by word or look,
confided anything with regard to your evil schemes to your faithful
comrade."
"My evil schemes?"
"Yes. Would you not, if you could, torture poor mortals, cut off their
arms and legs, and heaven knows what besides that is horrible and
cruel?"
"Since you call that cruel, you certainly must admit that I was
perfectly right not to mention to you the profession at which you jeer,
but which I consider the noblest that can be embraced."
The gravity with which he spoke made some impression upon Adela. She
looked at him almost timidly, and said, shyly, "Were you really in
earnest, then, about being a doctor?"
"I have found it very hard to relinquish the idea,--for the present at
least. But why should we speak of all this? Rather let us admire the
exquisite beauty of the afternoon, and of the woods and trees. Shall we
canter?"
Strangely enough, Adela instantly forgot all her vexation and her
determination to be revenged upon Walter. She saw that he refused her
his confidence, and, instead of being angry that this was so, she
became very sad.
"You are very fond of that Doctor Nordstedt of whom you were telling me
awhile ago, are you not?" she asked, suddenly reining in her mare after
a long canter.
Walter turned and looked her full in the face. "I thought you had
forgotten all that," he said. "I certainly thought that my comrade had
grown to be altogether too much of a fine lady, too much taken up with
dressing and visiting, to feel any interest in what I could tell her."
Adela blushed. Certainly she did very much desire to be a fine lady,
but she could not give up her comrade. She replied, "Well, and what
now, when you find that in spite of dressing and visiting I still have
time to think of Dr. Nordstedt?"
"Now I tell you that I certainly honour and love him, and that I am
proud to consider myself his friend."
"It is his fault, then, that you want to be a doctor?"
"On the contrary, it is he who is always pointing out to me all the
difficulties of the profession."
"Good heavens! how did you ever come to make such an acquaintance? Your
sight was always good. Certainly you had no need for consulting an
oculist--the man is an oculist, is he not?"
"Yes; and I never went near him on account of my eyes. But, as I told
you before, he is my aunt's family physician, and it was through her
that I became acquainted with him and with his family."
"Oh, yes,--his family! And of whom does this family consist?"
"This family consists of the father, Herr Nordstedt,--a self-made man,
sprung from the people,--of his wife, and of their son, my friend. They
are charming people; you ought to know them, Adela."
"Do they speak the Berlin _patois_ and mix up their parts of speech?"
Adela asked, slightly turning up her pretty little nose.
Walter laughed. "What an idea!" he exclaimed. "It is true that Herr
Nordstedt has worked hard with his hands to amass the modest competence
that he now possesses, but he is too clever a man to have allowed his
brain to lie idle in the mean while. His information is extensive and
various, and upon every question of the day his opinions are those of
the cultured class. The advantages of education of which he was
deprived he has, however, taken good care that his son shall enjoy to
the fullest extent. My friend is now entirely independent, pecuniarily,
of his father, and takes pride in being so."
"I wish Hugo would take a few lessons of him, then," said Adela; "I
think papa has to pay more and more for him every year. But then," she
added, hastily, "I really should not like him to be a doctor."
Walter smiled. "And would you dislike to have me one?" he asked.
"Very much," she replied, emphatically.
Walter touched his horse with the spur, and started upon another
canter.
"How rude you are!" Adela exclaimed; but she followed him, and in the
rapid pace which Walter seemed to enjoy so much on this particular day
there was no opportunity for any further serious conversation between
them.