Madame Dort had counted every day since that bright autumn morning when she saw her darling for the last time at the railway station.

It was not likely that she would forget how long he had been absent! Later on, when the excitement of coming home to his mother and meeting with Madaleine had calmed down, Fritz, having ceased to be a soldier, his services not being any longer required with the Landwehr, turned his attention to civil employment; for, now, with the prospect of marrying before him, it was more urgent than ever that he should have something to do in order to occupy his proper position as bread-winner of the family, the widow's means being limited and it being as much as she could do to support herself and Lorischen out of her savings, without having to take again to teaching--which avocation, indeed, her health of late years had rendered her unable to continue, had she been desirous of resuming it again.
Madaleine, of course, could have gone out as a governess, Madame Dort being, probably, easily able to procure her a situation in the family of one of her former pupils; or she might have resumed the position of a hospital nurse, for which she had been trained at Darmstadt, having been taken on as an assistant in the convalescent home established in that town by the late Princess Alice of Hesse, when the Baroness Stolzenkop turned her adrift.

But Fritz would not hear of Madaleine's leaving his mother.
"No," said he decisively to her, "your place is here with mutterchen, who regards you as a daughter--don't you, mother ?" "Yes, indeed," answered the widow readily enough--"so long as I'm spared." "There, you see, you've no option," continued Fritz triumphantly.
"Mother would not be able to do without you now.

Besides, it is not necessary.

I will be able to earn bread enough for all.