Again there came the laugh, the echo of which had roused her from sleep. "On the contrary," he said, "there will be joy throughout the family, and you will shortly have an opportunity to figure as a bridesmaid." "Oh, Hugo, how can you think of such things?" "These are just the things that I must think about, or we should soon cease to have need for thought of any kind. But you know nothing of it. Go to your father, and leave the rest to me." Adela fixed her eyes on a white sheet of paper, edged with black, that lay on the writing-desk, and on which she read the words, "My dear Councillor, I am a man of few words, and therefore frankly ask of you the hand of----" Hugo seized the paper and tore it in pieces. "There is no need for you to look so horrified," he said. "Fräulein Kohnheim is a very pretty girl; her parents had her baptized some time ago; and her father could pay the debts of an entire regiment if he chose." "Hugo!" "Leave me in peace, and be thankful that there is one way out of this for all of us. To-morrow morning this letter goes; to-morrow evening I go, and the next day our troubles will all be over." "And papa?" "Our father will soon recover; the doctor says so. A first stroke is never so dangerous----" "Adela!" a weak voice called at this moment. "You see he has already recovered his speech, as the doctor said he would," said Hugo. Adela flew to her father's side and covered his hand with kisses. For a moment her brother was forgotten; she only felt that a change for the better had come, that her father would recover, and that he had wanted her--her; that the first use he had made of his returning voice had been to call his daughter! CHAPTER XIV. THE MISTRESS OF EICHHOF AND HER GUESTS. With the first fall of snow there was born in Eichhof a little son and heir, and Bernhard, who had been summoned from Berlin, whither he had gone for a short autumn session, stared helplessly at the little creature that Thea presented to him, and which he proudly called his son, although how that red, wrinkled mite, quite buried in laces, could ever develop into a stalwart representative of the Eichhofs he could hardly imagine. Consideration for her child kept Thea at Eichhof this winter, and Bernhard allowed her to follow her inclination in this respect, all the more willingly that his 'improvements' at Eichhof had cost a great deal, and he would scarcely have been able to maintain the state which he deemed required by his rank had his wife gone with him to Berlin and been presented at court. "You are the dearest and most prudent of wives," he said to Thea; "and you are quite right to stay here this winter. But for all that you must not live the life of a recluse, for, since our year of mourning is over, we owe it to our position and to our neighbours to open our house again, even although I must be away. Your father and Lothar are close at hand, and will supply my place."