dvice
about your sufferings, and I have told you my honest opinion. In regard
to third persons, especially if they're my friends, I never express
myself openly and am ready to think every one a great man, until I have
received incontestable proofs to the contrary."

CHAPTER IV.

This conversation had this favorable result, that when Papa Feyertag
came to Leah's house in the evening, he seemed completely transformed;
or rather like the man his friends had formerly known. True he took
care to put the best face upon his conversion, but was very reserved
about the motives that induced him to return to Berlin. But he
endeavored in every way to show that he bore his son-in-law no malice,
principally by good natured jests about people who kept quiet to
accumulate fat, and thought more about propagation than propagandism;
moreover he was the most affectionate papa and grandpapa that could be
desired, and related, as never happened except when he was in the best
of humors, his own love story, that had led to the possession of
"mother."

Mohr sat by with a quiet curl of the under lip, not uttering a syllable
to betray the share he had had in the miracle. Besides, very different
thoughts occupied his mind. In the first place, Edwin's still
perceptible excitement caused him serious anxiety. The two young wives
also, especially Leah, were forced to exert great self-control to
conceal a heavy heart under a gay, jesting mood. As even the wine and
all the comical and quaint ideas to which Mohr gave utterance during
the evening, did not avail to lighten the oppression which, like an
invisible thunder cloud rested more and more heavily on both couples,
the faithful friend sat down to the harmonium and began to improvise.
He played for an hour, forgetting time and place in his own music, into
which he successively introduced all Christiane's favorite themes. When
he at last paused and looked around at the company, he saw that the
remedy had produced a totally different effect from the one he had
intended. Reinhold was sitting like a black bearded genius of
melancholy beside his little wife, who was quietly wiping her eyes;
Leah had left the room and after a very long absence returned with a
deadly pale face; Edwin had the bread knife in his hand and was
industriously cutting a straw table-mat into small pieces; papa
Feyertag was leaning back in the sofa corner, sleeping the sleep of the
just.

T