Straguw; and after procuring all requisite information, to set out again ostensibly on my return home; but to write to the councillor Ruderick again, intimating the non-existence of any such person as his acquaintance the pretended secretary, and explaining what my motives were in assuming the incognito as I had done; after leaving the good citizens of Klarenburg a fortnight or three weeks to talk over the matter, I intended I should return again, when any culpability which might appear in my conduct, would, I expected, be easily forgiven me in my character as the rich heir. So far all was well, but the source of my anxiety was what I had heard about the adjutants.
“Am I not an utter blockhead to give myself so much distress about them, as if they were the only women in my choice!” I exclaimed in strong passion, and thoroughly provoked and ashamed at my pusillanimity. “Why, is there not in the capital ten thousand equally or more surpassingly beautiful daughters of Eve awaiting the choice of a young man, who to an honourable employment, adds an honourable heart, and above and beyond all, a deal of money? And in the smaller towns and the country are there not fine young women springing up as thick as mushrooms wherever one turns his eye, to whom a residence in the capital would be an attraction strong almost as love itself? Certainly the fear of not getting a wife to one’s mind is, in Germany at least, quite ridiculous! Besides my good grandmother lays no farther restraint upon the perfect freedom of my actions than what is contained in her declaration, that in the event of my not marrying the girl of her choice, the interest of fifty thousand crowns shall go to the poor: And shall I defraud the lame, and the blind, and the houseless of their little pittance to swell my overgrown stores? Never! The sum I might thus save could never bring a blessing along with it! And besides all this, old people are quite proverbial for their odd tastes, and Heaven only knows what sort of choice the old lady may have made for her grandson. An object may appear very different to
