"Our lodger, Peter Steinmarc, has spoken to me, and he is anxious to make you his wife." "Peter Steinmarc!" "Yes, Linda; Peter Steinmarc." "Old Peter Steinmarc!" "He is not old. What has his being old to do with it?" "I will never marry Peter Steinmarc, aunt Charlotte." Madame Staubach had not expected to meet with immediate and positive obedience. She had thought it probable that there might be some opposition shown to her plan when it was first brought forward. Indeed, how could it be otherwise, when marriage was suggested abruptly to such a girl as Linda Tressel, even though the suggested husband had been an Apollo? What young woman could have said, "Oh, certainly; whenever you please, aunt Charlotte," to such a proposition? Feeling this, Madame Staubach would have gone to work by degrees,--would have opened her siege by gradual trenches, and have approached the citadel by parallels, before she attempted to take it by storm, had she known anything of the ways and forms of such strategy. But though she knew that there were such ways and forms of strategy among the ungodly, out in the world with the worldly, she had practised none such herself, and knew nothing of the mode in which they should be conducted. On this subject, if on any, her niece owed to her obedience, and she would claim that obedience as hers of right. Though Linda would at first be startled, she would probably be not the less willing to obey at last, if she found her guardian stern and resolute in her demand. "My dear," she said, "you have probably not yet had time to think of the marriage which I have proposed to you." "I want no time to think of it." "Nothing in life should be accepted or rejected without thinking, Linda,--nothing except sin; and thinking cannot be done without time." "This would be sin--a great sin!" "Linda, you are very wicked." "Of course, I am wicked." "Herr Steinmarc is a most respectable man. There is no man in all Nuremberg more respected than Herr Steinmarc." This was doubtless Madame Staubach's opinion of Peter Steinmarc, but it may be that Madame Staubach was not qualified to express the opinion of the city in general on that subject. "He holds the office which your father held before him, and for many years has inhabited the best rooms in your father's house." "He is welcome to the rooms if he wants them," said Linda. "He is welcome to the whole house if you choose to give it to him." "That is nonsense, Linda. Herr Steinmarc wants nothing that is not his of right." "I am not his of right," said Linda.