ked when he would return. Since the
arrival of the letter Edwin had written at the hotel, which was now
four days old, Leah had not heard from him, and therefore concluded he
would not remain much longer away. "This is the first time," said she,
"that we've been separated so many days, and I know that if he didn't
consider it necessary for his health, he wouldn't have stayed half so
long."

"But it's strange he doesn't write oftener," said Reginchen. "When my
Reinhold has to go to Leipsic on business, I get half a dozen letters
from him. You must train your husband better. Besides writing's his
trade."

"You don't know him, dearest. Precisely because he's in the habit of
telling me everything, it's hard for him to communicate with me, even
an hour every day, by his pen. He feels a sort of defiance against the
separation. He won't learn to be satisfied with a little, and if he
can't have all, prefers to get nothing."

"It may be so," replied her friend. "Besides, it always seems to me as
if you two really didn't need to speak to each other at all, but
exchanged your thoughts without the aid of words. But only let little
Leah come, and she'll give you some entirely new thoughts. Reinhold's
letters and mine contain nothing but anecdotes about the children; if
any one else should read them, he would laugh at us. But we're
perfectly serious."

Steps ascending the staircase interrupted these confidential
outpourings. The father-in-law and son-in-law, who had returned from
the workmen's meeting, entered, Franzelius exactly the same us in the
old days, only thanks to his little wife, with hair somewhat more
smoothly brushed and cravat more evenly tied, while the black eyes
under the bushy brows beamed with a quiet, almost shy expression of
love and happiness, which he owed to the same little wife also. Papa
Feyertag, on the contrary, was scarcely recognizable. The once
benevolent face, with its smile of superiority, had assumed a strangely
eager, excited expression, which together with a half grown grey
moustache rendered it by no means attractive. Instead of the neat,
quiet dress which he was in the habit of wearing on Sundays in his
shop, his short, thick set figure was clad in the fashionable garb of a
tourist, a mustard colored shade of cloth, variegated with little
points and dots from head to foot, and in addition a ridiculous little
hat with a blue ribbon. He was heated, and seemed to break off an angry
conversatio