A Noble Name; or, Dönninghausen

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Claire von Glümer. A Noble Name; or, Dönninghausen

CHAPTER I "ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE."

CHAPTER II. DISAPPOINTED ASPIRATIONS

CHAPTER III. A CRISIS

CHAPTER IV. FUTURE PLANS DECIDED

CHAPTER V. AT DÖNNINGHAUSEN

CHAPTER VI. THE FREIHERR'S PRINCIPLES

CHAPTER VII. JOHANNA TO LUDWIG

CHAPTER VIII. CHRISTMAS AT DÖNNINGHAUSEN

CHAPTER IX. NEW YEAR'S EVE

CHAPTER X "THAT BLASÉ LIEUTENANT."

CHAPTER XI. RECOVERY

CHAPTER XII. CELA N'ENGAGE À RIEN

CHAPTER XIII. JOHANNA TO LUDWIG

CHAPTER XIV. AN UNEXPECTED RETURN

CHAPTER XV. A BIRTHDAY FÊTE

CHAPTER XVI. A BETROTHAL

CHAPTER XVII. JOHANNA TO LUDWIG

CHAPTER XVIII. TANNHAGEN

CHAPTER XIX. PROFESSIONAL ENTHUSIASM

CHAPTER XX. AN EQUESTRIAN ARTIST

CHAPTER XXI. SHIPWRECK

CHAPTER XXII. DÖNNINGHAUSEN OBSTINACY

CHAPTER XXIII. THE FREIHERR ASSERTS HIS AUTHORITY

CHAPTER XXIV. DR. URBAN WOLF

CHAPTER XXV. A WAGER AND AN ADVISER

CHAPTER XXVI. DR. STEIN'S SCHEME

CHAPTER XXVII. THE FREIHERR'S WEAKNESS IS PAST

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE TERRACE-COTTAGE

CHAPTER XXIX. CHANGES AT DÖNNINGHAUSEN

CHAPTER XXX. AN OLD FRIEND ONCE MORE

CHAPTER XXXI. THE TRUTH AT LAST

CHAPTER XXXII. TWO YEARS AFTERWARD

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The festival was over. The last guests had taken their departure, and as they issued shivering into the cold air of the autumn night, criticism, and that not of a very genial kind, replaced the flattering expressions they had just used in characterizing to their hostess 'the delightful evening' they had passed.

"Wanton extravagance!" "It is worse than folly, and so out of taste for an actor to attempt to vie with a banker." "Everything borrowed, girls, – rely upon Frau Helena for that." "Yes, and she does understand how to dress herself. How beautiful she looked in that pale blue silk with the rich lace overskirt!" "And her pearl necklace and ear-rings, – where did she get those, do you think?" "'Honi soit qui mal y pense,' madame; a love-token from her husband, when he was another woman's husband." "Roderich always gives us excellent cigars, and the Johannisberg was delicious!" "Well, we needed it to carry down the play." "For heaven's sake, hush! Hofrath Leuchtenberg arranged the thing." "Oh, the thing itself was well enough, but the performance! Such nonsense to entertain us with an amateur performance!" "And that tall, pale, awkward girl was Roderich's daughter? 'Tis inconceivable that she should have no talent." "Roderich looked as if he were upon the rack when she stood so like a stick and 'spoke her piece.'" "But Frau Helena was all the more pleased; she could hardly conceal her exultation. Her step-daughter is a thorn in the flesh to her."

.....

"From Ludwig," she thought; and she was right; his large clear handwriting stared at her from the envelope, and covered three sides of a sheet of paper which enclosed several others. Johanna seated herself at the table and read:

To Johanna the tone of this letter seemed icy cold. Experience is needed to detect intensity of emotion beneath exterior and perhaps hardly-won composure. With a trembling hand she opened her mother's letter. What could she, gentle and loving as she had always been, require of her daughter so hard that her foster-mother had been unwilling to impart it to her? Johanna gazed at the delicate handwriting, its uncertain characters betraying the mortal weariness that had possessed the writer. The touching figure of her dying mother rose vividly in her memory, and with increasing emotion she read what follows, – in all of which she distinctly felt the quickened feverish throb of the poor invalid's heart.

.....