It was a very pretty scene when the Consul led his bride for the first time into the landscape-room and took her to his mother, who received her with outstretched arms. Gerda had grown tall and splendid. She walked with a free and gracious bearing; with her heavy dark-red hair, her close-set brown eyes with the blue shadows round them, her large, gleaming teeth which showed when she smiled, her straight strong nose and nobly formed mouth, this maiden of seven-and-twenty years had a strange, aristocratic, haunting beauty. Her face was white and a little haughty, but she bowed her head as the Frau Consul with gentle feeling took it between her hands and kissed the pure, snowy forehead. “Yes, you are welcome to our house and to our family, you dear, beautiful, blessed creature,” she said. “You will make him happy. Do I not see already how happy you make him?” And she drew Thomas forward with her other arm, to kiss him also. Never, except perhaps in Grandfather’s time, was there more gay society in the great house, which accommodated its guests with ease. Pastor Tiburtius had modestly chosen a bed-chamber in the back building next the billiard-room. But the rest divided the unoccupied space on the ground floor next the hall and in the first storey: Gerda; Herr Arnoldsen, a quick, clever man at the end of the fifties, with a pointed grey beard and a pleasant impetuosity in every motion; his oldest daughter, an ailing-looking woman; and his son-in-law, an elegant man of the world, who was turned over to Christian for entertainment in the town and at the club. Antonie was overjoyed that Sievert Tiburtius was the only parson in the house. The betrothal of her adored brother rejoiced her heart. Aside from Gerda’s being her friend, the parti was a brilliant one, gilding the family name and the firm with such new glory! And the three-hundred-thousand mark dowry and the thought of what the town and particularly the Hagenströms would say to it, put her in a state of prolonged and delightful enchantment. Three times daily, at least, she passionately embraced her future sister-in-law. “Oh, Gerda,” she cried, “I love you--you know I always did love you. I know you can’t stand me--you used to hate me; but--” “Why, Tony!” said Fräulein Arnoldsen. “How could I have hated you? Did you ever do anything to me?” For some reason, however--probably out of mere wantonness and love of talking--Tony asserted stoutly that Gerda had always hated her, while she on her side had always returned the hate with love. She took Thomas aside and told him: “You have done very well, Tom. Oh, heavens, how well you have done! If Father could only see this--it is just dreadful that he cannot! Yes, this wipes out a lot of things--not least the affair with that person whose name I do not even like to speak.”