ocked the glass, or breathed on the flower angrily,
a treatment which it could not bear. Therefore he rang again; and when
Louisa put in her head, he said, not unkindly, but more firmly than
before:

"What have you done to my rose, Louisa?"

"Nothing, sir!"

"Nothing? Do you think the flower died without a very good reason? You
can see for yourself that there is no water in the glass! You must have
poured it away!"

As Louisa had done no such thing, she went into the kitchen and began to
cry, for it is disagreeable to be blamed when one is innocent.

Conductor Crossberg, who could not bear to see people crying, said no
more, but in the evening he bought a new rose, one which had only just
been cut, and, of course, was not wired, for his wife had always had an
objection to wired flowers.

And then he went to bed and fell asleep. And again he fancied in his
sleep that the wall-paper was on fire, and that his pillow was very hot;
but he went on sleeping.

On the following morning, when he came into the sitting-room, to say his
morning prayers before the little altar--alas! there lay his rose,
all the pink petals scattered by the side of the stem. He was just
stretching out his hand to touch the bell, when he saw the photograph of
his beloved, half rolled up, lying by the side of the champagne glass.
Louisa could not have done that!

"She, who was my all, my conscience and my muse," he thought in his
childlike mind, "she is dissatisfied and angry with me; what have I
done?"

Well, when he put this question to his conscience, he found, as usual,
more than one little fault, and he resolved to eradicate his faults,
gradually, of course.

Then he had the portrait framed and a glass shade put over the rose,
hoping that now things would be all right, but secretly fearing that
they would not.

After that he went on a week's journey; he returned home late at night
and went straight to bed. He woke up once, imagining that the hanging
lamp was burning.

When he entered the sitting-room late on the following morning, it
was downright hot there, and everything looked frightfully shabby. The
blinds were faded; the cover on the piano had lost its bright colours;
the bound volumes of music looked as if they were deformed; the oil in
the hanging-lame had evaporated and hung in a trembling drop under the
ornament, where the flies used to dance; the water in the water-bottle
was warm.

But the saddest thing of all was that