pain, and she
seemed to herself a very unhappy creature that all her dreams should be
so quickly destroyed.

"Reginchen," he stammered, "I thank you for your sorrow--though--you
cannot suspect what I feel. You would never have known, if I could have
remained here--but now--since it can no longer do any harm--"

She gazed at him in astonishment with eyes that had suddenly become
dry. "No longer do any harm?" she repeated.

"Yes Reginchen. When I am gone, you will soon forget me, even if you
know that I--that I--but perhaps you do know it already."

"I, Herr Franzelius?" Her Eve's nature was again aroused; she would not
make it easy for him, he must speak out. How could he possibly be so
good an orator, when in her presence he stammered like a school boy?

"Reginchen," said he, drawing a long breath and taking a sudden start,
"if you really have not noticed--and I believe you, for you're
incapable of dissumulation--I--I have long--for two years--give me your
hand, Reginchen. You see I've sometimes imagined that some day I should
be granted the happiness of asking you--and your dear parents--to give
me this hand for life. I--I have loved you dearly, unspeakably, ever
since I knew you--and--though I know that I usually have very little
success--either in life or with women--it often seemed to me--as if you
too--"

He paused and let her hand fall, to take out his handkerchief and wipe
his forehead. The little fair haired deceiver thought it more decorous
to keep him in suspense a short time, though her whole heart drew her
toward him and she would gladly have thrown herself into his arms at
once.

"What are you talking about, Herr Franzelius?" she replied, half
pouting. "You have loved me, and now--now it's over. Because you're
going away, you will leave me behind like a troublesome piece of
property that won't go into your trunk?"

"Oh! Reginchen," he exclaimed, suddenly gazing at her so tenderly that
she blushed and cast down her eyes, "you're only joking. You know very
well what I mean, and that I shall never cease to love you far more
than any one else. If I tear myself away, believe me it's not only
because I should think it unprincipled--with my uncertain future and
the destiny which may be in store for me--to ask one so young and so
unused to want and privation--"

"Oh!" she interrupted, "is that all? I've always heard that the
principal thing is for people to love each other. Doesn't Annchen von
Tharau's