me you have
always shown yourself generous and sympathizing; but for this very
reason it pains me inexpressibly that you should have thus changed
toward Lenore."

"Leave that to me," returned Fink; "every one has his own way of taming
birds. Let me just add, that if your Fraeulein Lenore be not soon shaken
out of this sickly way of life, she will be utterly ruined. The pony
alone will not do it, I know; but you, my son, and your melancholy
sympathy, won't do it either; and so we will just let things take their
course. I am going to Rosmin to-day; have you any commands?"

This conversation, although it led to no estrangement between the
friends, was never forgotten by Anton, who silently resented Fink's
dictatorial tone, and anxiously watched his bearing toward Lenore, whom
Fink never sought nor avoided, but simply treated as a stranger.

Anton himself had some unpleasant experiences to go through. Much as he
avoided communicating what was unwelcome to the baron, there was one
thing he could no longer spare him, and that was the settlement of his
son's debts. Soon after Eugene's death, numberless letters, with bills
inclosed, had arrived at the castle, been given by Lenore to Anton, and
then by him all made over, Sturm's note of hand included, to Councilor
Horn, whose opinion and advice he craved to have respecting them. This
opinion had now arrived. The lawyer did not disguise that the note of
hand given by young Rothsattel to the porter was so informal that it
amounted to nothing more than a mere receipt, and did not in any way
bind the baron to pay the debt. Indeed, the sum was so great that
immediate payment was out of the question. Then Anton himself had lent
the young prodigal more than eight hundred dollars. As he drew out
Eugene's note of hand from among his papers, he looked long at the
handwriting of the dead. That was the sum by which his imprudence had
purchased a share in the fate of this noble family. And what had this
purchase brought him? He had then thought it a fine thing to help his
aristocratic friend out of his embarrassments; now, he saw that he had
only abetted his downward course. He gloomily locked up his own note of
hand in his desk again, and with a heavy heart prepared for a
conversation with the baron.

At the first mention of his son, the baron fell into a state of painful
excitement; and when Anton, in the flow of his narrative, chanced to
call the departed by his Christian name, the f