The letters to friends and relations were all undertaken by Mittler, and they were to be written and sent off at once.  It was highly necessary, he thought, that the good fortune which he considered so important for the family, should be known as widely as possible through the ill-natured and misinterpreting world.  For indeed these late entanglements and perplexities had got abroad among the public, which at all times has a conviction that, whatever happens, happens only in order that it may have something to talk about.

The ceremony of the baptism was to be observed with all due honor, but it was to be as brief and as private as possible.  The people came together; Ottilie and Mittler were to hold the child as sponsors.  The old pastor, supported by the servants of the church, came in with slow steps; the prayers were offered.  The child lay in Ottilie’s arms, and as she was looking affectionately down at it, it opened its eyes and she was not a little startled when she seemed to see her own eyes looking at her.  The likeness would have surprised any one.  Mittler, who next had to receive the child, started as well; he fancying he saw in the little features a most striking likeness to the Captain.  He had never seen a resemblance so marked.

The infirmity of the good old clergyman had not permitted him to accompany the ceremony with more than the usual liturgy.

Mittler, however, who was full of his subject, recollected his old performances when he had been in the ministry, and indeed it was one of his peculiarities that, on every sort of occasion, he always thought what he would like to say, and how he would express himself about it.

At this time he was the less able to contain himself, as he was now in the midst of a circle consisting entirely of well-known friends.  He began, therefore, toward the conclusion of the service, to put himself quietly into the place of the clergyman; to make cheerful speeches aloud, expressive of his duty and his hopes as godfather, and to dwell all the longer on the subject, as he thought he saw in Charlotte’s gratified manner that she was pleased with his doing so.

It altogether escaped the eagerness of the orator, that the good old man would gladly have sat down; still less did he think that he was on the way to occasion a more serious evil.  After he had described with all his power of impressiveness the relation in which every person present stood toward the child, thereby putting Ottilie’s composure sorely to the proof, he turned at last to the old man with the words, “And you, my worthy father, you may now well say with Simeon, ’Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen the savior of this house.’”

He was now in full swing toward a brilliant peroration, when he perceived the old man to whom he held out the child, first appear a little to incline toward it, and immediately after to totter and sink backward.  Hardly prevented from falling, he was lifted to a seat; but, notwithstanding the instant assistance which was rendered, he was found to be dead.