Not that the wise impresario was moved in this affair by any mere philanthropic desire to benefit a favourite pupil. As a prior condition to any expenditure on fitting and preparing Linnet for the operatic stage, Andreas proposed to obtain a clear hold on her future earnings by the simple little business preliminary of marrying her. And he proposed this plan to himself in the same simple-hearted and entirely dictatorial way in which he would have proposed some arrangement about his cows or his horses. That Linnet could possibly object to his designs for her advancement in life was an idea that hardly so much as even occurred to him. He was her master, and, if he ordered her, she could scarcely say him nay. That would be plain contumacy. Besides, the match would be one so much to her own advantage! Not a girl in St Valentin but would be overjoyed to catch him. Philippina, he knew, would give her eyes for such a chance; but Philippina’s high notes were shrill—a great deal too shrill—while Linnet’s were the purest and clearest and most silvery ever uttered by woman. He was a husband any girl might well be proud of, and though Linnet would be worth money, too, if properly trained, yet without his capital to back her up and give her that needful training, she could never use her voice to full (mercantile) advantage. She’d be a fool, indeed, if she refused his offer. And if she did,—well, she was bound to him for three years at any rate; he could use up her voice pretty well in those three years, as he used up his horses—on commercial principles—and make a very fair profit out of her meanwhile in the process. Thinking which things to himself during his stay in Meran, Andreas, who was by nature a taciturn person, had been in no hurry to communicate his ideas on the point prematurely to Linnet. He didn’t want to puff her up with too much vanity beforehand, by disclosing to her over-soon the high honour in store for her. She had received more than enough homage already from the audiences at their concerts; it would turn her head outright if she knew all at once she was also to be promoted to marry her master. He would make all the legal preparations for the wedding in due time, without consulting Linnet; then, when everything was finished, and the day had come for them to leave Meran, he would break to her all at once the good fortune he designed for her. Not only was she to marry a man of substance, and a man of weight, and a _Land-amt_ of the parish, but she was to be trained and fitted by him with sedulous care as a special star of the operatic profession.