Toni shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. "You have very childish
ideas at times, Marietta; but let us decide about the gowns."

"Yes, we'd better do that at once, for your dearly beloved will come
back soon and plant himself down like a sentinel between us. He
certainly has a talent for standing sentry. Now as to this blue silk--"

Even now the pros and cons of dress could not go on smoothly, for Frau
von Eschenhagen opened the door at this moment, and called Toni to give
her advice concerning some household matter. Toni rose at once and left
the room, but, instead of following her, her aunt remained and sank
down in a chair by the window. Frau von Eschenhagen wished to see for
herself. Will had not satisfied her; he had grown red and embarrassed
when called upon to repeat the girlish gossip which had taken place
between the two maidens, and his mother, who believed all this light
chatter but a cloak for something worse, determined to take the matter
into her own hands.

Marietta had risen respectfully at the entrance of the elder woman, whom
she had met but once before, and whose inimical bearing toward herself
she had not perceived in the joy of her first meeting again with her
friends. She only noticed that Toni's future mother-in-law was not a
cordial woman. This morning Frau Regine looked her over from head to
foot with a critical eye. Marietta seemed to her like all other girls,
but she was pretty, very pretty--and that was bad. She had short curly
hair all over her head--and that was worse.

There was no mistaking Frau Regine's attitude toward the young singer,
whom she now begun to question. "You are a friend of my son's betrothed,
I believe?"