Lottka," said I. "Forgive me, I will go
away at once. I happened to be passing by--and as the night was so
beautiful--as since yesterday you--Would you be so kind as to give me a
glass of bishop, Miss Lottka?"

Strange that my usually reckless eloquence should so regularly fail me
in the presence of this quiet creature!

"What have you been reading?" I began again after a pause, walking the
while up and down the shop. "A book from the lending library? Such a
torn shabby copy is not fit for your small white hands. Allow me--I
have a quantity of charming books at home--romances too--"

"Pardon me," she quietly rejoined. "I have no time to read romances.
This is a French Grammar."

"You are studying by yourself then?"

"I already speak it a little, I wish to understand it more thoroughly."

She relapsed into silence, and began to arrange the plates and spoons.

"Miss Lottka," said I after an interval, during which I had regained
courage from a contemplation of the gruff old Bluecher in the smaller
room. "Are you happy in the position that you occupy at present?"

She looked at me out of her large weary eyes with the amazement of a
child in a fairy-tale when suddenly addressed by a bird.

"How come you to put such a question?" she enquired.

"Pray do not attribute it to heartless curiosity," I went on, in my
excitement upsetting a small pyramid of biscuits. "Believe that I feel
a genuinely warm interest in you-- If you need a friend--if anything
has happened to you--you understand me-- Life is so sad, Miss
Lottka--and just in our youth--"

I was floundering deeper and deeper, and the drops stood on my brow. I
would have given a good deal if that old Bluecher had not encouraged me
to make this speech.

However I was spared further humiliation. The door leading from the
interior of the house opened, and the person to whom the shop belonged
made her appearance. She seemed a good-natured square woman, with a
thick cap-border, who explained to me as civilly as she could, that I
had already remained a quarter of an hour beyond the usual time of
shutting up, for that she was in the habit of putting out the gas at
half-past ten. Accordingly I paid in all haste for my half-emptied
glass, threw an expressive and half-reproachful glance at the silent
girl, and went my way.

That night my couch was not one of roses. I made a serious attempt to
finish my German essay:--"Comparison between the Antigone of Sophocles
and th