heerful. I'm really glad that I have
made your acquaintance; I was too much alone, and in my situation I
must beware of all persons whom I cannot implicitly trust. Why I have
confided in you, I do not know; but so it is, and I should really be
grieved if you did not think well of me, or if you were deterred from
coming again in consequence of my frank expressions of opinion in
regard to the various things I read or experience. And you must not
come too often. I do not wish to cause gossip among the people in the
house; but two or three times a week about this hour, before it is time
to go to the theatre--only you must not first get your dinner at home.
Will you promise me that?"

She rose and held out her hand, which he hastily grasped and pressed
cordially in his own.

"May the meal be blessed to you!" she said smiling. "We always said
that in my parent's house, and I miss it here. Jean has too much
respect for me, and the birds cannot be taught to do it. So I shall see
you again soon, and you will bring Goethe's other works, of which you
have spoken?"

He bowed silently, involuntarily placing his hand on his heart, and in
a very puzzled mood left her.

Just as he emerged from the house, a light carriage drove up; the
gentleman, who had himself held the reins threw them to the servant
sitting behind and sprang out with the laughing exclamation: "Doctor,
are you mad?"

"Marquard! Is it you? Have you a patient in this house?"

"Only one, who as I see, is making my efforts superfluous by taking the
cure into his own hands. Or have you not just come from _her_?"

"From her? I don't understand you."

"Hypocrite! As if I did not see the fire in your heart burning through
your vest" (Marquard was fond of quoting from Heine.) "My dear fellow,
you won't find it so easy to deceive an old diagnostician of my stamp.
But how the deuce did you get on her track again?"

"Let's walk a few steps down the street," said Edwin coloring. "The
windows are open, every word can be heard up stairs."

He seized the doctor by the arm and drew him away, relating in an
undertone the story of the lost book-mark, and leaving it in doubt
whether the accident had brought him here to-day for the first time.
"And you," he hastily concluded. "How did you discover that our
neighbor in the box at the theatre lived here?"

"By means of the vein I laudably struck," declaimed the doctor. "The
renewal of my acquaintance with this fair Sphinx is o