Bertha arose, and was about to reply, but her husband commanded silence by so imperious a gesture that she swallowed down her anger and hastened from the room, sobbing violently. In the kitchen the maid was just taking the cake that she had made from the oven. It was successful--it was most beautiful! The servant placed it near the open window to cool. Bertha contemplated it mournfully. How much pains she had taken! how stiff the eggs had been beaten! how well it had risen! and no one cared anything about it! Did her cross husband deserve that she should prepare such a delicacy for him? Should he devour this masterpiece? Yet there it was,--so round and high, so brown and fragrant, that she gradually dried her tears, and was filled with more agreeable sensations and a pardonable pride. No one except herself possessed the receipt for this cake. No one else could make it. She thought with rapture of the delight of those who should in future partake of it at her table,--of the consideration that she should enjoy on account of it; and, thinking thus, her good humour returned, and she determined not to hide her light under a bushel, and punish her husband by withholding the cake from him, but to parade it before him; he should see what a woman he had treated so unkindly could do. When he tasted this cake he would repent his harshness! She took the plate and carried it on high into the dining-room, where she placed it before her husband with exultation. "Yes, that is really beautiful," he said approvingly, looking first at the round, beautiful cake, and then at the plump, pretty baker; and his approbation exalted Bertha to the highest pitch of satisfaction, so that she felt morally justified in asking for a glass of champagne. Her husband removed the cork without allowing it to snap and disturb the decorum of the house of mourning, and then poured out a sparkling bumper for her. "Come," she said, "we will clink glasses, and drink to the welfare of the good Hartwich, who has made us rich!" "Yes, now that he is dead, may he live forever," said Leuthold smiling, and gently touching his wife's glass with his own,--"live forever in that heaven where I trust he may experience all the delight that his wealth will afford us here on earth." They emptied their glasses, and Bertha ran into the adjoining room, where Gretchen was taking her noonday nap. She snatched the sleeping child from the bed, shook it, and cried, "Come, wake up, and you shall have some cake!" The little thing, interrupted in its nap, was frightened and began to scream, refusing to be quieted until her father filled her mouth with the promised delicacy and dandled her in his arms. "You do not even understand how to take care of your own child," murmured Leuthold. "What will you do when our niece comes to us?" "What!" cried Bertha, "must I have the care of the disagreeable creature?" "She will come to me--yes." "But we will send her to boarding-school--you promised me!"