by saying, "Look! I wore your cloak; it was dusk; and I have a horrible
suspicion that she mistook me for you, and that you have most
unjustifiably abused Bernhard's friendship."

"Ah ha!" said Fink, shaking his head, "here we have a proof of how ready
these virtuous ones are to throw a stone at others. You are a child.
There are other white cloaks in the town; how can you prove that mine
was the one waited for? And then allow me to remark, that you showed
neither politeness nor presence of mind on the occasion. Why not have
led the lady down stairs, and when the mistake became apparent, have
said, 'It is true that I am not he you take me for, but I am equally
ready to die in your service,' and so forth?"

"You don't deceive me," rejoined Anton; "when I think the matter over, I
can not, spite of your lies, shake off the belief that you were the one
expected."

"You cunning little fellow," said Fink, good-humoredly, "confess, at
least, that when a lady is in the case, I needs must lie. For seest
thou, my son, to admit this were to compromise the fair daughter of an
honorable house."

"Alas!" said Anton, "I fear that she already feels herself compromised."

"Never mind," said Fink, coolly, "she will bear it."

"But, Fritz," said Anton, wringing his hands, "have you, then, no sense
of the wrong you are doing to Bernhard? It is just because his pure
heart beats in the midst of a family circle that he only endures because
he is so trusting and inexperienced, that this injury pains me so
bitterly."

"Therefore you will do wisely to spare your friend's sensitiveness, and
keep his sister's secret."

"Not so," replied Anton, indignantly; "my duty to Bernhard leads me to a
different course. I must demand from you that you break off your
connection with Rosalie, whatever its nature, and strive only to see in
her what you always should have seen--the sister of my friend."

"Really," returned Fink, in a mocking tone, "I have no objection to your
making this demand; but if I do not comply with it, how then?--always
supposing, which, by the way, I deny, that I was the fortunate expected
one."

"If you do not," cried Anton, in high excitement, "I can never forgive
you. This is more than mere want of feeling--it is something worse."

"And what, pray?" coldly asked Fink.

"It is base," cried Anton. "It is bad enough to take advantage of the
young girl's coquetry, but worse to forget her brother as well as me,
through who