asked for Frances, and said she was to bring her to
Fraeulein Julie, only for half an hour. It was a surprise they were
preparing for the father, she said; Fraeulein Angelica was going to make
a sketch of the child; a drosky was waiting outside the door, and she
asked the good grandmamma to put on the child's little cloak, but not
to make any other change in its dress. The old woman, as soon as her
deafness allowed her to catch the meaning of this story, had thought it
rather strange, at first; but the explanation given by the stranger
that Fraeulein Angelica was prevented from coming and getting the child
herself, by a slight cold she had caught on the evening before, had
quieted her again. Besides, the child would be brought back in a couple
of hours; Fraeulein Julie would bring it home herself. As the stranger
seemed to be so well acquainted with all the people and circumstances
of which she spoke, the old woman could offer no reasonable objection.
But the stranger had scarcely left the house when she was filled with
an unaccountable anxiety, and had impatiently awaited her daughter's
return.

She, however, had been detained in the city longer than she had
expected by a number of errands; and, when she finally did return and
found that the child had not been brought back, she immediately set out
in the greatest anxiety to look for it. But she found no trace either
at Julie's (who was herself absent, the old servant Erich said, for she
had not come back to her dinner at the usual time), or at Angelica's
house. At the latter place they told her that the artist had not gone
out until about noon, for she had risen very late; besides, she had
found the weather too dark for working. Her last faint hope had been
that the child would be found at her father's--and here, too, there was
no trace of her!

The woman's eyes filled with tears while telling him the story. She had
slipped down from the pedestal and now lay, weeping bitterly, at the
feet of the silent man, as if she would disarm his anger by this humble
posture.

"Calm yourself!" she heard him say at last. "You are innocent in the
whole affair. Believe me; the child is not lost--oh, no! it is in
excellent hands. Can a child be safer anywhere than with the mother who
bore it?"

The weeping woman raised herself and looked at him inquiringly.

"Yes, yes!" he repeated, laughing bitterly. "You have never been told
about that, my good friend; it was very thoughtless