Thus Helen's letter had fallen into her mother's hands. It was an accident--one of those accidents which evil spirits seem to bring about, for the very purpose of confusing doubting minds still further, and of leading them more surely away from the right path. Without this accident it would probably never have occurred to the baroness that she might thus find a way to her daughter's heart. But her plan of marrying Helen to Felix had become a fixed idea in her mind, as it happens often with selfish and self-willed characters. The state of her husband's health seemed to her--justly or unjustly--very dangerous; Malte had from his birth been very delicate, and the over-anxious tenderness of his parents had made him still more so; thus it appeared to her more than probable that Felix might ere long be master at Grenwitz, and she thought it therefore wise policy to bind him to her interests as much as she could. At first she had looked in this to Helen's advantage almost as much as to her own, and found it very convenient that her and her daughter's interest could be so pleasantly combined. Felix seemed to be made to become the son-in-law of an imperious mother-in-law. He was trifling, yielding, averse to business, and always disposed to let things go as they chose to go, if he had but money or credit enough. The baroness did not remember that such men are the hardest to manage, because reckless frivolity and intense selfishness can very well go hand in hand, and that these men are ever ready to sacrifice all who oppose their selfish desires. She thought she had nothing to fear from Felix. He had won her whole heart, as far as she had any heart, by his courteous, accommodating manner, and his ever ready: As you like it, dear aunt--do you settle that, please, dear aunt!