ner, if you will let me ask a question now. Had the lady
you mean a large semi-circular scar just under the hair, exactly in the
middle of her forehead?"

"Enough," cried Wilhelm, rising hastily. "She fell on one of her
father's weapons when a child."

"On the contrary, sir, the handle of Junker Van Hoogstraten's weapon
fell on the forehead of his own daughter. How horrified you look! Oh! I
have witnessed worse things in this house. Now it is your turn again: In
what city of my home did you meet the signorina?"

"In Rome, alone and under an assumed name. Isabella--a Holland girl!
Pray go on with your story, Belotti; I won't interrupt you again. What
had the child done, that her own father--"

"He is the wildest of all the wild Hoogstratens. Perhaps you may have
seen men like him in Italy--in this country you might seek long for such
a hurricane. You must not think him an evil-disposed man, but a word
that goes against the grain, a look askance will rob him of his senses,
and things are done which he repents as soon as they are over. The
signorina received her scar in the same way. She was a mere child, and
of course ought not to have touched fire-arms, nevertheless she did
whenever she could, and once a pistol went off and the bullet struck one
of the best hunting-dogs. Her father heard the report and, when he saw
the animal lying on the ground and the pistol at the little girl's feet,
he seized it and with the sharp-edged handle struck--"

"A child, his own daughter!" exclaimed Wilhelm indignantly.

"People are differently constituted," Belotti continued. "Some, the
class to which you probably belong, cautiously consider before they
speak or act; the second reflect a long time and, when they are ready,
pour forth a great many words, but rarely act at all; while the third,
and at their head the Hoogstraten family, heap deeds on deeds, and if
they ever think, it is only after the act is accomplished. If they then
find that they have committed an injustice, pride comes in and forbids
them to confess, atone for, or recall it. So one misfortune follows
another; but the gentlemen pay no heed and find forgetfulness in
drinking and gambling, carousing and hunting. There are plenty of debts,
but all anxiety concerning them is left to the creditors, and boys who
receive no inheritance are supplied with a place at court or in the
army; for the girls, thank God, there is no lack of convents, if they
confess our holy religion