so much, it looked so matronly, almost like a little cap. When she
went up to the toilet-table with this graceful emblem of her youthful
dignity, to look at herself in the glass, she saw there a bouquet of
lilies of the valley with a paper wound round their stems.

"From him, from Frank," she whispered, growing crimson with delight.

He had said good-bye to her with such a merry smile. She hastily
unwound the paper from the flowers and read it.

They were verses turning on the expression he had made use of the day
before,--"loving unspeakably," and justifying himself for using it by
pointing out that for long after he had seen and loved her he knew not
how to call her, where she dwelt, nor who she was, and so he might
literally be said to have loved her "unspeakably."

"That is how he proves himself in the right," she murmured with
blissful looks, pressing the paper to her lips. "And he is right,
indeed, he does love me 'unspeakably.' Ah, I am a very happy woman!"

And she put the lilies of the valley in her dress, the verses in her
pocket, took the key-basket and went to the dining-room once more on a
tour of inspection round the table, and then as she had nothing to do
for the moment, she knocked at Aunt Rosa's door, which was only
separated from the dining-room by a small entry.

The old lady was sitting at the window making roses. There was to be a
wedding in the village at Whitsuntide. A small man was sitting opposite
her, who greeted the entrance of the young wife with a low bow.

"Beg a thousand pardons, madam,--I wanted to speak to your
husband--I heard he had gone out and the lady here permitted me to wait
for him."

"What does he say, Mrs. Linden?" inquired the old lady, shaking hands,
"I did not permit him to do any such thing. He came in himself--and
here he is."

"My name is Wolff, madam," said the agent by way of introduction.

"Must you speak to my husband to-day? It will not be convenient, for we
have company to dinner. Can't I arrange it?" inquired Gertrude.

"O, no--no--" said he, very decidedly, bowing as he spoke. "I must
speak to Mr. Linden himself, but I can come again, there is no hurry, I
used to come here every day. Good morning, ladies."

"What could he want, auntie?" inquired the young wife after he had
gone.

"Well, I can tell you what he wanted of _me_--he wanted to _question_
me. He would have liked to look through the key-hole to find out how it
looked in your house. But si