The Lost Manuscript Part 86

"Has that dough-face over the way been blabbing?" asked Mr. Hummel.

"He was obliged to tell me, and it was a happy moment for me. Now I will acknowledge all to you with shame and repentance. Forgive me."

She sank down before him.

"Father, I have long been sick at heart. I have thought you pitiless.

Your eternal grumbling and enmity to our neighbor have made me very unhappy, and my life here has often been miserable."

Mr. Hummel sat erect and serious, but a little dismayed at the confession of his child, and he had an indistinct impression that he had carried his rough opposition too far.

"That is enough," he said; "this is all excitement and imagination. If I have been vexed through all these years, it has not done me any harm, nor the people over the way either. It is an unreasonable sorrow that now excites your lamentations."

"Have consideration for me," entreated Laura. "An irresistible longing to go forth from this narrow street, has entered my soul. Father, I would like to take a leap into the world."

"Indeed!" said Mr. Hummel. "I also should like to take a leap into it, if I only knew where this jolly world could be found."

"Father, you have often told me how light was your heart when you wandered forth as a boy from your native town, and that from these wanderings you became a man."

"That is true," replied Hummel. "It was a fine morning, and I had eight pence in my pocket. I was as lively as a dog with wings."

"Father, I also should like to rove about."

"You?" asked Hummel. "I have laid aside my knapsack; there are only a few hairs remaining on it, but you may tie your boots over it; then one cannot see it."

"Good father, I also want to go out and seek my way among strangers, and look out for what will please me. I will try my powers, and fight my may with my own hands."

"You must put on breeches," said Hummel; "you cannot otherwise go alone in your wanderings.'

"I will take some one with me," answered Laura, softly.

"Our maid Susan? She can carry a lantern for you. The paths in this world are sometimes muddy."

"No, father; I mean the Doctor."

She whispered to him:

"I want the Doctor to elope with me."

"Ah, you little spider!" cried Hummel, amazed. "The Doctor elope with you! If you were to elope with him, there would be more sense in it."

"That's just what I want to do," replied Laura.

"Mutually, then!" said Hummel. "Listen: the matter becomes serious.

Leave off embracing me, keep your hands away, and make a face beseeming a citizen's daughter and not an actress."

He pushed her down on the window-seat.

"Now speak to the point. So you intend to carry off the Doctor? I ask you, with what means? For your pocket-money will not reach far, and he over the way has not much to spare for such Sunday pleasures? I ask you, will you first marry him? If so, the elopement would be very suspicious, for I have never yet heard of a woman carrying off her husband by force. If you do not marry him, there is something which you must learn from your mother, and which is called modesty. Out with it!"

"I wish to have him for a husband," said Laura, softly.

"Ah, that is it, is it? and was your Doctor ready to take charge of you before marriage, and to run away with you?"

"No; he spoke as you do, and reminded me that I ought not to give you pain."

"He is occasionally humane," replied Hummel; "I am indeed indebted to him for his good intentions. Finally, I ask you, where will you carry him off to?"

"To Bielstein, father. There is the church in which Ilse was married."

"I understand," said Hummel, "ours are too large; and what afterwards?

Do you mean to work as a day-laborer on the estate?"

"Father, if we could but travel," said Laura, imploringly.

"Why not," replied Mr. Hummel, ironically; "to America, perhaps, as colleagues of Knips junior? You are as mad as a March hare. The legitimate and only daughter of Mr. Hummel will run away from her father and mother, from a comfortable house and flouris.h.i.+ng business, with her neighbor's only son, who is in his way also legitimate, to a fools' paradise. I never could have thought that this hour would arrive."

He paced up and down.

"Now hear your father. If you had been a boy I would have had you well thrashed; but you are a girl, and your mother has formed you according to her principles. Now I perceive with regret that we have allowed you to have your own way too much, and that you may be unhappy for your whole life. You have got the Doctor into your head, and you might as well have fixed upon a tragic hero or a prince, and it shocks me to think of it."

"But I have not thought of such," replied Laura, dejectedly; "for I am my father's daughter."

Hummel laid hold of the plaits of her hair and examined them critically:

"Obstinacy; but the mixture is not throughout the same; there is something of higher womanliness with it; fancifulness, and whimsical ideas. That is the misfortune; here a powerful stroke of the brush is necessary."

These words he repeated several times, and sat down thoughtfully on his chair.

"So you wish for my consent to this little elopement. I give it you upon one condition. The affair shall remain between us two; you shall do nothing without my consent, and even your mother must not know that you have spoken to me of it. You shall take a drive into the world, but in my way. For the rest, I thank you for this present that you have made me on my birthday. You are a pretty violet for me to have brought up! Has one ever heard of such a plant taking itself by the head and tearing itself out of the ground?"

Laura embraced him again, and wept.

"Do not set your pump again in motion," cried Mr. Hummel, untouched, "that cannot help either of us. A happy journey, Miss Hummel."

Laura, however, did not go, but remained clinging to his neck. The father kissed her on the forehead.

"Away with you; I must consider with what brush I shall stroke you smooth."

Laura left the room. Mr. Hummel sat alone for a long time by his desk, holding his head with both hands. At last he began to whistle in a low tone the old Dessauer--a sign to the book-keeper, who was entering, that soft feelings had the upper hand with him.

"Go across to the Doctor, and beg him to take the trouble of coming over to me immediately."

The Doctor entered the office. Mr. Hummel rummaged in his desk and brought out a little paper.

"Here, I return you the present that you once made me."

The Doctor opened it, and two little gloves lay within.

"You may give these gloves to my daughter on the day on which you are married to her, and you can tell her they come from her father, from whom she has run away."