Debit and Credit Part 3

"Hush!" implored she. "I often feel that so much sunshine can not last forever. I desire, as it were, to fast and do penance, thus to propitiate the envy of fortune."

"Come, come," was the good-humored reply; "fortune has given us a few rubs already: we have had our clouds, only this little hand has always conjured them away. Why, have you not had plague enough with the servants, the pranks of the children, and sometimes with your tyrant too, that you should be wishing for more?"

"You dear tyrant!" cried the wife, "I owe all my happiness to you; and, after seventeen years, I am as proud as ever of my husband and my home.

When you brought me here, a poor maid of honor, with nothing but my trinket-box, and that a gift, I first learned the blessedness of being mistress in my own house, and obeying no other will than that of a beloved husband."

"And yet you gave up much for me," returned the baron; "I have had many a fear lest our country life should seem petty and dull to you, a favorite at court."

"There I obeyed, here I rule," said the baroness, laughing. "There I had nothing besides my fine dresses that I could call my own; here, every thing around is mine. You belong to me (she wound her arms around the baron), and so do the children, the castle, and our silver candlesticks."

"The new ones are only plated," suggested the baron.

"Never mind; no one finds it out," cried she, merrily. "When I look at our own dinner-service, and see your and my arms on the plates, two spoonfuls give me ten times more satisfaction than all the courses of the court dinner ever did."

"You are a bright example of contentment," said the baron; "and for your and the children's sake, I wish this property were ten times larger, so that I might keep a page and a couple of maids of honor for my lady wife."

"For heaven's sake, no maids of honor; and as for a page, I need none with such an attentive knight as yourself."

And so the pair walked on to the house, Lenore having taken possession of the horse's bridle, affectionately exhorting him to raise as little dust as possible.

"I see a carriage," said the baron, as they drew near the door; "have any visitors come?"

"It is only Ehrenthal, who wished to see you," replied his wife, "and meanwhile expended all his pretty speeches upon us. Lenore was so arrogant that it was high time I should carry her off--the droll man was quite put out of countenance by the saucy girl."

The baron smiled. "I like him the best of his cla.s.s," said he. "His manners are at least not repulsive, and I have always found him obliging. How do you do, Mr. Ehrenthal; what brings you here?"

Mr. Ehrenthal was a portly man in the prime of life, with a face too yellow, fat, and cunning to be considered exactly handsome. He wore gaiters, and a large diamond breast-pin, and advanced with a series of low bows toward the baron.

"Your servant, good sir," said he, with a deferential smile; "although no business matters lead me here, I must sometimes crave permission to look round your farm, it is such a treat and refreshment to me; all your live-stock is so sleek and well-fed, and the barns and stables in such perfect order. The very sparrows look better off here than elsewhere. To a man of business, who is often obliged to see things going to wrack and ruin, it is a delight, indeed, to contemplate an estate like yours."

"You are so complimentary, Mr. Ehrenthal, that I can but believe you have some weighty business on hand. Do you want to make a bargain with me?" asked the count, good-naturedly.

With a virtuous shake of the head in refutation of the charge, Mr.

Ehrenthal went on: "Not a word of business, baron, not a word. _Our_ business, when we have any, admits of no compliments--good money and good stock, that is our plan; and so, please G.o.d, it will be. I merely came, in pa.s.sing by"--here he waved his hand--"in pa.s.sing by, to inquire about one of the horses the baron has to sell; I promised a friend to make inquiries. But I can settle the matter with the bailiff."

"No, no; come along with me, Ehrenthal--I am going to take my horse to the stable."

With many bows to the ladies, Ehrenthal followed, and, arrived at the stable-door, respectfully insisted that the baron should enter it first.

After the customary questions and answers, the baron took him to the cow-house, and he then fervently requested to see the calves, and then the sheep. Being an experienced man, his praise, although somewhat exaggerated, was in the main judicious, and the baron heard it with pleasure.

After the inspection of the sheep, there was a pause, Ehrenthal being quite overcome by the thickness and fineness of their fleece. He nodded and winked in ecstasy. "What wool!" said he; "what it will be next spring! Do you know, baron, you are a most fortunate man? Have you good accounts of the young gentleman, your son?"

"Thank you, he wrote to us yesterday, and sent us his testimonials."

"He will be like his father, a n.o.bleman of the first order, and a rich man too; the baron knows how to provide for his children."

"I am not laying by," was the careless reply.

"Laying by, indeed!" said the tradesman, with the utmost contempt for any thing so plebeian; "and why should you? When old Ehrenthal is dead and gone, you will be able to leave the young gentleman this property--with--between ourselves--a very large sum indeed, besides a dowry to your daughter of--of--what shall I say? of fifty thousand dollars, at least."

"You are mistaken," said the baron, gravely; "I am not so rich."

"Not so rich!" cried Ehrenthal, ready to resent the speech, if it had not been made by the baron himself. "Why, you may then be so any moment you like; any one, with a property like yours, can double his capital in ten years, without the slightest risk. Why not take joint-stock promissory notes upon your estate?"

Ehrenthal alluded to a great joint-stock company of landed proprietors which lent money on a first mortgage on estates. This money took the form of promissory notes, made payable to the holder. The company itself paid interest to those who accepted the mortgages, and advanced money on them, raising from its own debtors, in addition to the interest, a small sum as commission, for the purpose of defraying expenses, and also for the gradual extinction of the debt incurred.

"I will have nothing to do with money transactions," said the baron, proudly. But the string the tradesman had touched went on vibrating notwithstanding.

"Transactions such as those I speak of are carried on by every prince,"

continued Mr. Ehrenthal, fervently. "If you were to do as I suggested, you might any day obtain fifty thousand dollars in good parchment. For it you would pay to the company four per cent.; and if you merely let the mortgages lie in your cash-box, they would bring you in three and a half. So you would only have a half per cent. to pay, and by so doing you would liquidate the capital."

"That is to say, I am to run into debt in order to get rich," said the baron, shrugging his shoulders.

"Excuse me, baron; if a n.o.bleman like you has fifty thousand dollars lying by him, for which he only pays a half per cent., he may buy up half the world. There are always opportunities of getting estates for a mere nothing, or shares in mines, or something or other, if you only have the money ready. Or you might establish some kind of works on your property; as, for instance, for making beet-root sugar, like Herr von Bergue; or a brewery, like your neighbor, Count Horn. There is no possible risk to be feared. Why, you would receive ten, twenty, ay, fifty per cent. for the capital borrowed at four per cent."

The baron looked down thoughtfully. Ideas of the sort had often flitted across his mind. It was just the time when numerous industrial speculations had started up, and landed proprietors looked upon them as the best way to increase their means. Mr. Ehrenthal perceived the effect his words had taken, and concluded in the obsequious tone most natural to him: "But what right have I to give any advice to a n.o.bleman like you? Only, every capitalist will tell you that in our days this is the surest method by which a man of rank can provide for his family; and, when the gra.s.s is growing over old Ehrenthal's grave, you will think of me and say, 'Ehrenthal was but a plain man, but he gave me advice which has proved advantageous to my family.'"

The baron still looked thoughtfully down. His mind was made up, but he merely replied, with affected indifference, "I will think the matter over." Ehrenthal asked no more.

It was a pity that the baron did not see the expression of the tradesman's face as he got into his conveyance and drove away. He told the coachman to go slowly through the grounds, and looked with delight at the flourishing crops on either side. "A fine property," he went on muttering to himself; "truly a fine property."

Meanwhile the baroness sat in the shrubbery, and turned over the leaves of a new magazine, every now and then casting a look at her daughter, who was occupied in framing, with old newspapers and flowers, a grotesque decoration for the pony's head and neck, while he kept tearing away all of it that he could reach. As soon as she caught her mother's glance, she flew to her, and began to talk nonsense to the smart ladies and gentlemen who displayed the fashions in the pages of the magazine.

At first her mother laughed, but by-and-by she said, "Lenore, you are now a great girl, and yet a mere child. We have been too careless about your education; it is high time that you should begin and learn more systematically, my poor darling."

"I thought I was to have done with learning," said Lenore, pouting.

"Your French is still very imperfect, and your father wishes you to practice drawing, for which you have a talent."

"I only care for drawing caricatures," cried Lenore; "they are so easy."

"You must leave off drawing these; they spoil your taste, and make you satirical." Lenore hung her head. "And who was the young man with whom I saw you a short time ago?" continued the baroness, reprovingly.

"Do not scold me, dear mother," cried Lenore; "he was a stranger--a handsome, modest youth, on his way to the capital. He has neither father nor mother, and that made me so sorry for him."

Her mother kissed her, and said, "You are my own dear, wild girl. Go and call your father; his coffee will get cold."

As soon as the baron appeared, his head still full of his conversation with Ehrenthal, his wife laid her hand in his, and said, "Oscar, I am uneasy about Lenore!"

"Is she ill?" inquired her father, in alarm.

"No, she is well and good-hearted, but she is more free and unconventional than she should be at her age."

"She has been brought up in the country, and a fine, clever girl she is," replied the baron, soothingly.

"Yes, but she is too frank in her manner toward strangers," continued his wife; "I fear that she is in danger of becoming an original."

"Well, and is that a very great misfortune?" asked the baron, laughing.