g her youth interesting, then her manners
attractive, till one day he returned to his own room fully resolved to
be the nephew-in-law of Mr. Pix.

The merchant sat one evening in his arm-chair, and seemed absorbed in
his own thoughts. At last, turning to his sister, he said, "Fink has
disappeared again."

Sabine let her work fall. "Disappeared! In America!"

"An agent of his father's was in our counting-house to-day. According to
what he told me, there has been a fresh difference between Fink and his
father, and this time I fear Fink is more in the right of it than the
firm. He has suddenly given up the management of its affairs, has broken
up by his strong measures a great company founded by his uncle, has
renounced his claim upon his inheritance, and has disappeared. The
uncertain reports that have come from New York say that he has gone to
the prairies of the interior."

Sabine listened with intense interest, but she said not a word. Her
brother, too, was silent a while. "After all, there were noble elements
in his character," said he, at length. "The present time requires energy
and strength like his. Pix, too, is leaving us. He is to marry a widow
with means, and to set up for himself. I shall give his post to Balbus,
but he will not replace him."

"No," said Sabine, anxiously.

"This house is growing empty," continued her brother, "and I feel that
my strength is failing. These last years have been heavy ones. We get
accustomed to the faces, even to the weaknesses of our fellow-men. No
one thinks how bitter it often is to the head of a firm to sever the tie
that binds him to his coadjutors; and I was more used to Pix than to
most men: it is a great blow to me to lose him. And I am growing old. I
am growing old, and our house empty. You alone are left to me at this
gloomy time; and when I am called upon to leave you, you will remain
behind me desolate. My wife and my child are gone; I have been setting
my whole hopes upon your blooming youth; I have thought of your husband
and your children, my poor darling; but meanwhile I have grown old, and
I see you at my side with a cheerful smile and a wounded heart--active,
sympathizing, but alone; without great joys and without happy hopes."

Sabine laid her head on her brother's shoulder, and wept silently. "One
of those whom you have lost was dear to you," said she, gently.

"Do not speak or think of him," replied her brother, darkly. "Even if he
returned from the