Landlord of the 'Lion;' you are not yet bound."

"These are your worldly subterfuges! I am not so clever as you, and I
have never mixed with the world like you, but I know what is right. I
betrothed myself to Annele in her mother's presence, and I will keep my
word. God grant I may get her from her father! And, now I say to you
for the last time, I did not ask your advice, and I know well what I am
doing."

"Hear me, Lenz. I shall only be too glad if I have been in error: but,
no! My dear Lenz, for God's sake listen to me; it is still time. You
cannot say that I ever tried to dissuade you from marrying."

"No, you never did."

"You are just the man to be a good husband, but I was a fool not to say
to you sooner, that you ought to marry one of the Doctor's daughters."

"Do you think I would have gone to them and said:--'My guardian,
Pilgrim, desires his compliments, and bids me say that he thinks I
ought to marry one of you: Amanda, if possible.' No, no; these young
ladies are too high and refined for me."

"They are, indeed, refined; while Annele only pretends to be so. The
fact is, you were shy with the Doctor's daughters, but not with Annele;
you could go into the 'Lion,' without anyone asking you why you came
there. Oh! I see it all! Annele talked to you about your sorrow, for
she can talk on any subject, and that softened your heart. Annele wears
a leather pocket in every one of her gowns, and her heart is nothing
but leather, where she has always small coin ready to give every guest
his change in full."

"You are committing a sin, a great sin!" said Lenz, his lip quivering
from anger and grief; and to prove to Pilgrim how cruelly unjust he was
towards Annele, he related to him how kindly and touchingly Annele had
spoken to him, both about the death of his mother, and at the time when
he sent away his clock; he had cherished every word like a revelation.

"My own money! my own coin!" cried Pilgrim. "She has plundered a
beggar! What a confounded, stupid idiot I have been! Every syllable she
said to you she picked up from my lips. I was such a fool as to say
these very words before her, from time to time. I well deserve it all!
but how could I possibly guess that she was to entrap you with my
words? Oh! my poor coins!"

The two friends remained silent for a time. Pilgrim bit his lips till
they bled, and Lenz shook his head incredulously; at last Pilgrim
resumed the discussion by saying:--"Do you know Annele