and then a smile
spread over her face. In great confusion she looked into Gertrude's
face.

"Addie," she said, "you can bear witness that I have always been a most
orderly person my whole life long."

"Yes, auntie, the most envious person must allow you that virtue."

"And yet last Christmas it happened to me to mislay a letter. It was to
Linden from Wolff; for four whole days we searched for it. Let me see,
that was the twenty-second of December--the letter was lost, and on the
twenty-sixth, I happened to lift up my window-cushion and there was the
thing. No one could have been gladder than I. I stayed up till late at
night--Linden had gone to a party at the Baumhagens--and when at last
he came home I gave him the letter and he put it carelessly in his
pocket and said, 'Aunt Rosa, you shall hear it first, I have just been
getting engaged.' And in the joy of his heart he took me in his arms as
if I were still only eighteen. You see, and that"--she struck the bit
of paper with her right hand--"that is a scrap of the letter, my little
woman, and the date coincides exactly."

Gertrude was already by her side. "Is that true?" escaped from her
trembling lips.

The old lady nodded. "Perfectly true," she declared. "Ask Dora. She
searched for the letter with me, and thereby got a great knock on the
head when she was trying to move the wardrobe."

But Gertrude declined this. She stood for awhile in silence, her head
bent down, her color changing rapidly from red to white, then she moved
towards the door and in another moment she had disappeared.

Lightly she mounted the stairs, and the old worn boards seemed to
understand why the little feet stepped so carefully and did not as
usual, crack and snap.

It was still as death in the whole house; the corridor was still dusky
and the old pictures on the wall looked sleepily down on the young
wife. The tall clock kept on its solemn tick-tack, tick-tack. It
sounded so strangely in Gertrude's ears, as she stood hesitating before
the brown door and grasped the knob.

Tick-tack, tick-tack! How the time flies! One should not hesitate a
moment when one has a fault to repair--every minute is so much taken
from him--quick, quick!

Softly she opened the door and slipped in. She had drawn her dress
close about her, so the train should not rustle. Two large eyes gazed
anxiously out of the pale face round the room, which was glowing in the
morning sunshine. Now her heart seemed to sto