down upon a mere workman. So Boltay went away and married some one else,
and the marriage turned out unhappy and childless; and by the time his
wife died both he and Teresa had grown old. Teresa had never married at
all. For forty years she had been growing old and grey, but she had
never forgotten her first love. In the mean time her family had gone
down in the world, and she had been obliged to live in a house in the
suburbs, where she had remained for five-and-twenty years. Boltay
meanwhile had become a rich man, and had purchased the house in which
Teresa lived, and this gave him an opportunity of doing little
kindnesses to Teresa, which she could not very well refuse. Thus, he
turned the yard into a garden, gave the noisier of his tenants notice to
quit, and charged her a purely nominal rent. And yet, for all that, they
never exchanged a word together. Boltay himself lived at the opposite
end of the town, over his shop; but he knew very well, all the same,
what was going on at Teresa's. He knew, too, that she had adopted Fanny,
and about this time he frequently sent over his head journeyman (a
worthy, honest young fellow, and his favourite, whom he meant to make
his heir, so people said, for he had no relatives) to purchase Fanny's
handiwork, for which he paid very handsomely. He would not have dared to
offer Teresa any direct assistance; but Teresa, for the girl's sake,
felt bound to accept what he offered in this way.

Maybe both she and Boltay thought what a pretty pair the two young
people would make. Alexander (to give the young journeyman his name for
the first time) was a tall, muscular, well-built fellow, with blonde
curly locks, ardent blue eyes, and a bold, manly face. There was nothing
slovenly or commonplace in his bearing, nor, on the other hand, did he
affect gentility; but there was that quiet self-confidence about him
which belongs to the man whose mind and body are equally developed. The
girl was a slender, ideal creature, with languishing black eyes and a
rosy, chubby face so full of colour that even round her eyes one could
not detect a spot of pallor--just such a beauty, in fact, as the world
is apt to make much of. They contrasted prettily enough--blonde and
brunette, blue eyes and black; he so bold, vigorous, and sedate, she so
overflowing with tenderness and feeling; yet who can tell what is
written concerning them in the stars?

Amongst Teresa's acquaintances was a dapper little man who wa