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Updated: June 12, 2025
He resumed his seat, and, fixing his eyes upon the lock, continued: "She was one of Ottilie's friends dear friends, they called each other, which meant that they kissed each other profusely, and told each other all their secrets, or as much as the lying nature of the sex permitted and suggested.
Ottilie, half embarrassed at the proposal, referred him and his request to Charlotte. The latter gladly gave her permission, and lent her assistance in overcoming and overpersuading Ottilie's hesitation in assuming so sacred a personality. The Architect worked day and night, that by Christmas-eve everything might be ready. Day and night, indeed, in the literal sense.
All this, which the dear girl poured out so warmly, Charlotte privately reflected over; on many different occasions, although only in the gentlest manner, she had hinted at the possibility of Ottilie's being brought again in contact with Edward; but the slightest mention of it, the faintest hope, the least suspicion, seemed to wound Ottilie to the quick.
But Ottilie's figure, expression, attitude, glance, excelled all which any painter has ever represented. A man who had true knowledge of art, and had seen this spectacle, would have been in fear lest any portion of it should move; he would have doubted whether anything could ever so much please him again. Unluckily, there was no one present who could comprehend the whole of this effect.
Charlotte and the Captain observed this, and exchanged many a quiet smile at it; but they were both taken by surprise at another symptom, in which Ottilie's latent feeling accidentally displayed itself.
In Ottilie's presence she said to him, "Well now, you have looked closely enough into everything which is going forward in my circle. How do you find Ottilie? You had better say while she is here."
Ottilie's own personal position with the Architect was as pure and unconscious as possible. His agreeable presence, and his industrious nature, had charmed and entertained her, as the presence of an elder brother might. Her feelings for him remained at the calm unimpassioned level of blood relationship.
He sat fully clothed in his arm chair, made attempts to reach his study, spoke confidently of his recovery, and of the walks he would take in the fine April days. His daughter-in-law Ottilie tended him faithfully. On the morning of the 22d his strength gradually left him. He sat slumbering in his arm chair, holding Ottilie's hand. Her name was constantly on his lips.
About this time, the incidents noticed in Ottilie's diary become more rare, while we find a larger number of maxims and sentences drawn from life and relating to life. It is not conceivable that the larger proportion of these could have arisen from her own reflection, and most likely some one had shown her varieties of them, and she had written out what took her fancy.
In return for this, Ottilie's anxiety to be of use increased every day; the more she came to understand the house, its inmates, and their circumstances, the more eagerly she entered into everything, caught every look and every motion; half a word, a sound, was enough for her. With her calm attentiveness, and her easy, unexcited activity, she was always the same.
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