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With these good friends Andreas consulted in all important matters relating to Roschen's well-being.
It was such music as the angels made, Andreas declared, yet thinking most of all of one angel voice, the memory of which while still on earth was very dear to him; and even in the case of those who were moved by no tender association of the sweet tones of the living and the dead this estimate of Roschen's singing did not seem unduly high.
Here, again, the good qualities of Aunt Hedwig came to the front, for to her intelligent direction was due the rather surprising success that attended Roschen's ambitious attempt to become so early a hausfrau.
Time and again was a great culinary disaster averted by a rapid dash on Roschen's part from her imperilled home to the bakery, where Aunt Hedwig's advice was quickly obtained and then was promptly acted upon.
He was not afraid of her virtue, for she was as cold as ice; you had to be thankful when she did not scratch your eyes out. She had been trying him very sorely lately. Since Röschen's illness she would have nothing to do with him. What did it matter to Mr. Tiralla if he lost three or four pounds? It amused him when the Count won them, for that was the only harvest the poor devil had nowadays.
And so, as he listened to the singing of his bird, gentler and better thoughts possessed him; and then he reproached himself for the selfishness that had so filled his heart. He had no right, he thought, to stand in the way of Roschen's happiness to compel her to take the old love that he had to give in place of the fresh young love that was offered to her.
It was, indeed, a sight worth travelling far to see, this of Andreas washing and dressing the baby in the sunny room at the back of the shop where hung the cages in which were the choicest of his birds. Roschen's first conscious memory was of laughing and splashing in her little tub in the sunshine, while all around her was a carolling of song.
Fine chatterings she and Minna had, as Andreas inferred from her occasional brief reports of them, about the prodigious matrimonial event that was so near at hand. As Andreas also inferred, these chatterings put various notions of an exciting and somewhat disturbing sort into Roschen's little head.
In due time, in accordance with the decorous German custom, both of these young men made formal application to Andreas for permission to be ranked formally as Roschen's suitors; and, as it chanced, they both preferred their requests upon the same day.
That Andreas, under such circumstances, even should consider his request, touched Ludwig's good heart with gratitude; and the love that he had for a long while felt towards the old man led him now to pat an arm around his shoulder, as a son might have done, and to tell him that the home which he had ready for Roschen was ready for Roschen's father too. And Lud wig's voice also trembled a little.
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