h cast his down, and
toyed with his barret-cap. Master Martin gave the two lads places at
the bottom of the table. But they were the most glorious places of all,
for presently Rosa came and sat down beside them, carefully helping and
serving them with exquisite dishes and delicious wines. All this made a
delightful picture to behold. The beautiful Rosa, the handsome lads,
the bearded masters, one could not but think of some shining morning
cloudlet rising up alone on a dark background of sky; or, perhaps, of
pretty spring flowers, raising their heads from melancholy, colourless
grass. Friedrich could hardly breathe for rapture and delight; only by
stealth did he now and then glance at her who was filling all his soul.
He stared down at his plate; how was it possible for him to swallow a
morsel? Reinhold, on the other hand, never moved his eyes (from which
sparkling lightnings flashed) from the girl. He began to talk of his
far travels in such a marvellous style, that she had never heard
anything like it before. All that he spoke of seemed to rise before her
eyes in thousands of ever-changing images; she was all eye, all ear.
She did not know where she was, or what was happening to her when
Reinhold, in the fire of his discourse, grasped her hand and pressed it
to his heart. "Friedrich," he cried, "why are you sitting mum and sad?
Have you lost your tongue? Come, let's clink our glasses to the health
of this young lady, who is taking such care of us here." Friedrich
took, with trembling hand, the tall goblet which Reinhold had filled to
the brim, and which, as Reinhold did not draw breath, he had to empty
to the last drop. "Here's to our brave master!" Reinhold cried again,
filling the glasses; and once more Friedrich had to empty his bumper.
Then the fire-spirit of the wine permeated him, and set his halting
blood a-moving, till it coursed, seething and dancing, through all his
veins. "What a blissful feeling," he whispered, as the glowing scarlet
mantled in his cheeks; "I cannot express how delightful; never did I
feel so happy in all my life before."

Rosa--to whom those words might, perhaps, convey another sense smiled
on him with marvellous sweetness, and he, befreed from all his
bashfulness, said: "Dear Rosa, I suppose you don't remember me at all,
do you?"

"Now, Friedrich," answered Rosa, with downcast eyes; "how could it be
possible that I should forget you so soon? At old Herr Holzschuer's I
was only a child,