“You’re a little minx,” said Regine, striving to look as severe as ever.  “You know very well that one can’t be angry with you long.  Oh, there’ll be a petticoat government at Burgsdorf from this time on, such as the place has never witnessed before.  Will’s a little ashamed before me yet, but as soon as I’m gone he’ll surrender at discretion.”

“Why do you cling to that idea, mother?” said Willibald, reprovingly.  “Why do you want to go when all is love and peace between us?”

“Just for that reason I go, that peace may continue; we need not discuss it, my son.  I must always be first where I live and work.  You must be that now, and we wouldn’t pull together.  Until now we have been distressed and anxious about you, not knowing what hour would bring tidings to break our hearts.  That’s all over, but I’m not so old that I must be set aside as useless.  Wherever I am I must be the head, and for that reason I am going.”

She turned and entered the house, while her son gazed after her and gave a troubled sigh.

“Perhaps she is right,” he said, “but it will be hard for her to be without duties or occupation.  Enforced quiet will be very hard for her, I know.  You should have begged her to remain, Marietta.”

Marietta laid her head on his shoulder and looked up smiling: 

“O no, I’ll do something better.  I’ll have a care that when she leaves us she will not be unhappy.”

“You?  What will you do?”

“Only a simple thing—­have her get married.”

“What do you mean?”

“O, Will, to be so wise and yet see nothing,” said his wife with her old sweet silvery laugh.  “Have you no idea why uncle Schoenau was in such a bad humor when we met him in Berlin, and urged him to visit us?  Your mother didn’t invite him because she feared another proposal; he understood that, and it made him furious.  I saw them at Waldhofen the time of our marriage, and I knew he would have been very glad to have a similar ceremony performed for himself, only your mother said him nay.  Don’t put on such a face, Will; you look exactly as you did the first day I saw you.”

Her husband was gazing at her in boundless astonishment.  He had never dreamed of such a possibility as his mother marrying again, or his uncle either, for that matter.  It struck him now as a most excellent arrangement.

“Marietta, how wise you are!” he said, looking with admiration at the smiling girl, who was beaming with satisfaction at the manner in which her news had been received.

“I’m wiser than you think,” she declared triumphantly, “for I have set the wheel going.  I took occasion to let uncle Schoenau know that if he stormed the fort again, a complete surrender might follow.  He said he had no intention of being refused again, but you’ll see him sooner than you think.  In fact he’s in the house now, came half an hour ago, but I determined to say nothing about it before mamma—­here he is now!”