"Oh, mamma, do not put that into my head. If that were added to it all, I should indeed be wretched."
"No; he is too just for that. Poor young man! Sometimes I almost think it would be better that he should go back to England."
"Mamma, if he did, I should--break my heart."
"Isa!"
"Well, mamma! But do not suppose that I mean to complain, whatever happens."
"But I had been so sure that you had constrained your feelings!"
"So I had,--till I knew myself. Mamma, I could wait for years, if he were contented to wait by my side. If I could see him happy, I could watch him and love him, and be happy also. I do not want to have him kneeling to me, and making sweet speeches; but it has gone too far now,--and I could not bear to lose him." And thus to her mother she confessed the truth.
There was nothing more said between Isa and her mother on the subject, and for two days the matter remained as it then stood.
Madame Heine had been deeply grieved at hearing those last words which her daughter had spoken. To her also that state of quiescence which Isa had so long affected seemed to be the proper state at which a maiden"s heart should stand till after her marriage vows had been p.r.o.nounced. She had watched her Isa, and had approved of everything,--of everything till this last avowal had been made. But now, though she could not approve, she expressed no disapproval in words. She pressed her daughter"s hand and sighed, and then the two said no more upon the matter. In this way, for two days, there was silence in the apartments in the Ludwigs Stra.s.se; for even when the father returned from his work, the whole circle felt that their old family mirth was for the present necessarily laid aside.
On the morning of the third day, about noon, Madame Heine returned home from the market with Isa, and as they reached the landing, Agnes met them with a packet. "Fritz brought it from the bank,"
said Agnes. Now Fritz was the boy who ran messages and swept out the office, and Madame Heine put out her hand for the parcel, thinking, not unnaturally, that it was for her. But Agnes would not give it to her mother, "It is for you, Isa," she said. Then Isa, looking at the address, recognised the handwriting of her uncle.
"Mamma," she said, "I will come to you directly;" and then she pa.s.sed quickly away into her own room.
The parcel was soon opened, and contained a note from her uncle, and a stiff, large doc.u.ment, looking as though it had come from the hands of a lawyer. Isa glanced at the doc.u.ment, and read some few of the words on the outer fold, but they did not carry home to her mind any clear perception of their meaning. She was flurried at the moment, and the words, perhaps, were not very plain. Then she took up her note, and that was plain enough. It was very short, and ran as follows:-
"My dear Niece,
You told me on Monday that I was stern, and harsh, and unjust.
Perhaps I was. If so, I hope the enclosed will make amends, and that you will not think me such an old fool as I think myself.
"Your affectionate uncle, "HATTO HEINE.
"I have told n.o.body yet, and the enclosed will require my brother"s signature; but I suppose he will not object."
"But he does not know it, mamma," said Isa. "Who is to tell him?
Oh, mamma, you must tell him."
"Nay, my dear; but it must be your own present to him."
"I could not give it him. It is Uncle Hatto"s present Mamma, when I left him I thought that his eye was kind to me."
"His heart, at any rate, has been very kind." And then again they looked over the doc.u.ment, and talked of the wedding which must now be near at hand. But still they had not as yet decided how Herbert should be informed.
At last Isa resolved that she herself would write to him. She did write, and this was her letter:-
"Dear Herbert,
"Mamma and I wish to see you, and beg that you will come up to us this evening. We have tidings for you which I hope you will receive with joy. I may as well tell you at once, as I do not wish to flurry you. Uncle Hatto has sent to us a doc.u.ment which admits you as a partner into the bank. If; therefore, you wish to go on with our engagement, I suppose there is nothing now to cause any very great delay.
"ISA."
The letter was very simple, and Isa, when she had written it, subsided into all her customary quiescence. Indeed, when Herbert came to the Ludwigs Stra.s.se, not in the evening as he was bidden to do, but instantly, leaving his own dinner uneaten, and coming upon the Heines in the midst of their dinner, she was more than usually tranquil. But his love was, as she had told him, boisterous. He could not contain himself, and embraced them all, and then scolded Isa because she was so calm.
"Why should I not be calm," said she, "now that I know you are happy?"
The house in the Schrannen Platz still goes by the name of Heine Brothers, but the mercantile world in Bavaria, and in some cities out of Bavaria, is well aware that the real pith and marrow of the business is derived from the energy of the young English partner.