"Do when he speaks? When comes the right man and tells you that he
loves you, asking you to be his wife, mine Anna, you must answer: 'For
this so great honor, sir, I thank you, and I give you in return my
heart and hand.'"

Ah, the visions in his mind as he said this, of the far-off German
village, of the dainty maiden standing there before a gallant youthful
gentleman, trying to be as formal, when she placed her hand in his, as
lifelong training in the stiff formalities of life had made him, in
his embarrassment, while he told his great devotion to her! Thinking
back along the path of years that led to that bright garden, how Herr
Kreutzer smiled!

"How beautiful that sounds!" said Anna, softly. "'For this so great
honor, I thank you, and I give you in return my heart and hand.'"

It brought the old flute-player back from the far garden.

"Do not practice on it yet," he said, without unkindness, but with a
firm tone which gave his words almost the stern significance of a real
order. "There is no hurry, liebschen, but, when the time is ripe for
it, ah, it will come. Yah; it will come."

Her thoughts were full of all this talk of love and marriage as she
went to Mrs. Vanderlyn's next morning, to take up again her routine of
companion and instructor to the lady in the German language. She was
not so very fond of Mrs. Vanderlyn. That lady was too much absorbed in
her ambition to gain real importance in the social world to leave much
time for being lovable to anybody but her son. That she was fond of