poor
exchange. Filippi--understands drawing; but otherwise.... Michael
Angelo's pupil! Does he still write on his back? Every monk is God's
servant, but in how few does the Lord dwell! What have you drawn with
Sebastiano?"

Ulrich answered these questions in a subdued tone; and Coello listened
with only partial attention, for he heard his wife telling the duenna
Catalina in an adjoining room what she thought of her husband's conduct.
She did so very loudly, for she wished to be overheard by him and
Ulrich. But she was not to obtain her purpose, for Coello suddenly
interrupted the returned travellers story, saying:

"This is getting beyond endurance. If she does her utmost, you shall
see Isabella. A welcome, a grasp of the hand, nothing more. Poor young
lovers! If only it did not require such a confounded number of things to
live.... Well, we will see!"

As soon as the artist had entered the adjoining room, a new and more
violent quarrel arose there, but, though Senora Petra finally called a
fainting-fit to her aid, her husband remained firm, and at last returned
to the studio with Isabella.

Ulrich had awaited her, as a criminal expects his sentence. Now she
stood before him led by her father's hand-and he, he struck his forehead
with his fist, closed his eyes and opened them again to look at her--to
gaze as if he beheld a wondrous apparition. Then feeling as if he should
die of shame, grief, and joyful surprise, he stood spellbound, and knew
not what to do, save to extend both hands to her, or what to say, save
"I... I--I," then with a sudden change of tone exclaimed like a madman:

"You don't know! I am not.... Give me time, master. Here, here, girl,
you must, you shall, all must not be over!"

He had opened his arms wide, and now hastily approached her with the
eager look of the gambler, who has staked his last penny on a card.

Coello's daughter did not obey.

She was no longer little, unassuming Belita; here stood no child, but
a beautiful, blooming maiden. In eighteen months her figure had gained
height; anxious yearning and constant contention with her mother had
wasted her superabundance of flesh; her face had become oval, her
bearing self-possessed. Her large, clear eyes now showed their full
beauty, her half-developed features had acquired exquisite symmetry, and
her raven-black hair floated, like a shining ornament, around her pale,
charming face.

"Happy will be the man, who is permitted to call