Christine darted away and brought him a huge mug of hot coffee.
“Really, Miss Ludolph,” he remonstrated, “you should not wait on me in this style.”
“You may well feel honored, sir,” said Mrs. Leonard. “It is not every man that is waited on by a baroness.”
“The trouble with Christine is that she is too grateful,” put in the old doctor.
“Now I should say that was scarcely possible in view of—” commenced the professor, innocently.
“I really hope Miss Ludolph will do nothing more from gratitude,” interrupted Dennis, in a low tone that showed decided annoyance.
The doctor and Mrs. Leonard were ready to burst with suppressed amusement, and Cronk, seeing something going on that he did not understand, looked curiously around with a sandwich halfway to his open mouth, while Ernst, believing from Dennis’s tone that he was wronged, turned his great eyes reproachfully from one to another. But Christine was equal to the occasion. Lifting her head and looking round with a free, clear glance she said, “And I say that men who meet this great disaster with courage and fortitude, and hopefully set about retrieving it, possess an inherent nobility such as no king or kaiser could bestow, and, were I twenty times a baroness, I should esteem it an honor to wait upon them.”
A round of applause followed this speech, in which Cronk joined vociferously, and Mrs. Leonard whispered: “Oh, Christine, how beautifully I learn from your face the difference between dignity and pride! That was your same old proud look, changed and glorified into something so much better.”
Dennis also saw her expression, and could not disguise his admiration, but every moment he increasingly felt how desperately hard it would be to give her up, now that she seemed to realize his very ideal of womanhood.
And Cronk, having satisfied the clamors of his appetite, began to be fascinated in his rough way with her grace and beauty. Nudging Dennis he asked in a loud whisper heard by all, which nearly caused Dr. Arten to choke, “The young filly is a German lady, ain’t she?”
Dennis, much embarrassed, nodded assent.
A happy thought struck Bill. Though impeded by the weight of an indefinite number of sandwiches, he slowly rose and looked solemnly round on the little group. Dennis trembled, for he feared some dreadful bull on the part of his rough, though well-meaning friend, but Dr. Arten, in a state of intense enjoyment, cried, “Mr. Cronk has the floor.”
Lifting a can of coffee containing about a quart, the drover said impressively, and with an attempt at great stateliness:
“Beautiful ladies and honorable gentlemen here assembled, I would respectfully ask you to drink to a toast in this harmless beverage: The United States of Ameriky! When the two great elemental races—the sanguinary Yankee and the phlegmatic German—become one, and, as represented in the blooded team before me” (waving his hand majestically over the heads of Dennis and Christine), “pull in the traces together, how will the ship of state go forward!” and his face disappeared behind his huge flagon of coffee in the deepest pledge. Bill thought he had uttered a very profound and elegant sentiment, but his speech fell like a bombshell in the little company.
“The very spirit of mischief is abroad today,” Dennis groaned. And Christine, with a face like a peony, snatched up the youngest little Bruder, saying, “It is time these sleepy children were in bed;” but the doctor and the Leonards went off again and again in uncontrollable fits of laughter, in which Dennis could not refrain from joining, though he wished the unlucky Cronk a thousand miles away. Bill put down his mug, stared around in a surprised and nonplussed manner, and then said, in a loud whisper, “I say, Fleet, was there any hitch in what I said?”
This set them off again, but Dennis answered good-naturedly, slapping his friend on the shoulder, “Cronk, you would make a man laugh in the face of fate.”
Bill took this as a compliment, and the strange party, thrown together by an event that mingled all classes in the community, broke up and went their several ways.
L
Every Barrier Burned Away
Dennis was glad to escape, and went to a side door where he could cool his hot cheeks in the night air. He fairly dreaded to meet Christine again, and, even where the wind blew cold upon him, his cheeks grew hotter and hotter, as he remembered what had occurred. He had been there but a little time when a light hand fell on his arm, and he was startled by her voice—“Mr. Fleet, are you very tired?”
“Not in the least,” he answered, eagerly.
“You must be: it is wrong for me to think of it.”
“Miss Ludolph, please tell me what I can do for you?”
She looked at him wistfully and said: “This is a time when loss and disaster burden every heart, and I know it is a duty to try to maintain a cheerful courage, and forget personal troubles. I have tried today, and, with God’s help, hope in time to succeed. While endeavoring to wear in public a cheerful face, I may perhaps now, and to so true a friend as yourself, show more of my real feelings. Is it too far—would it take too long, to go to where my father died? His remains could not have been removed.”
“Alas, Miss Ludolph,” said Dennis, very gently, “there can be no visible remains. The words of the Prayer Book are literally true in this case—‘Ashes to ashes.’ But I can take you to the spot, and it is natural that you should wish to go. Are you equal to the fatigue?”
“I shall not feel it if you go with me, and then we can ride part of the way, for I have a little money.” (Dr. Arten had insisted on
