The day on which this memorable resolution was formed was a cold, windy
autumn day, making it imperative to choose warm clothing for the night
journey. All day the ladies were occupied with putting their wearing
apparel in order, which, in the face of this journey, proved to be
inadequate in many respects.
“We’ll buy all that in Berlin,” said Helen consolingly to her sister,
who was putting on her plain little straw hat with a look of deep
concern, quite unconscious of the fact how charmingly becoming it was
to her rosy face. The judge walked up and down in the room, casting
brief remarks at his ladies from time to time. “Don’t take your entire
outfit along just for two or three days,” he remarked warningly.
Evening came fast enough; every moment was made the most of, and when
the lamps were lit there was still this and that waiting to be attended
to. At the last moment--they were just sitting down to tea--a thought
struck the paterfamilias; he touched the bell.
“Did you attend to what I told you this morning?” he asked the maid in
his mystifying fashion.
Pauline looked at her master with no very intelligent expression in her
face.
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Did you get what I told you?” queried the judge. Pauline was silent,
thereby giving most decided expression to her bewilderment.
“Why, Karl, do tell her what you mean,” implored Helen; “there’s no
time to be lost--we must be going!”
“Very well,” replied the judge discontentedly; “of course it is more
than you can endure not to know what I am referring to! Did you go and
fetch my fur-lined great-coat from the furrier’s?”
Pauline blushed guiltily.
“Oh, dear me, I forgot all about it, sir--I’ll run there now as fast as
I can!”
“Yes, and you’ll run back no doubt when we are in the cars,” said her
master contemptuously. “Well, then, I shall take my death of cold on
the journey--at any rate I shall be spared the trouble of telling
Lebermann just how my funeral came off!”
“Well, well, Karl,” said Helen, soothing his dismal forebodings; “seems
to me there might be some other way out of your difficulty. Pauline can
fetch the great-coat to the station and hand it to you there. Do you
understand, Pauline?”
Pauline nodded humbly and departed, while the judge arose and took
up the leather bag containing the money and tickets, and enjoined
his ladies to make haste. “Put on your things, children--I think the
carriage is coming!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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