this was a great pleasure to the Captain. He could now be confident that
his absence would not be so severely felt. It was one of the points on
which he was most resolute with himself, never to leave anything which
he had taken in hand uncompleted, unless he could see his place
satisfactorily supplied. And he could not but hold in small respect,
persons who introduce confusion around themselves only to make their
absence felt and are ready to disturb in wanton selfishness what they
will not be at hand to restore.

So they labored on, straining every nerve to make Ottilie's birthday
splendid, without any open acknowledgment that this was what they were
aiming at, or, indeed, without their directly acknowledging it to
themselves. Charlotte, wholly free from jealousy as she was, could not
think it right to keep it as a real festival. Ottilie's youth, the
circumstances of her fortune, and her relationship to their family, were
not at all such as made it fit that she should appear as the queen of
the day; and Edward would not have it talked about, because everything
was to spring out, as it were, of itself, with a natural and delightful
surprise.

They, therefore, came all of them to a sort of tacit understanding that
on this day, without further circumstance, the new house in the park was
to be opened, and they might take the occasion to invite the
neighborhood and give a holiday to their own people. Edward's passion,
however, knew no bounds. Longing as he did to give himself to Ottilie,
his presents and his promises must be infinite. The birthday gifts which
on the great occasion he was to offer to her seemed, as Charlotte had
arranged them, far too insignificant. He spoke to his valet, who had the
care of his wardrobe, and who consequently had extensive acquaintance
among the tailors and mercers and fashionable milliners; and he, who not