espected town-councillor and the senior of our guild, calls his little
villa, in that small fir-wood at the foot of Carlsberg, in the
direction of Conrad's Hammer, by the name of Sorrento? He bought
Berklinger's pictures of him and took the old man and his daughter into
his house, that is, out to Sorrento. And there they lived for several
years; and if you, my respected Herr Traugott, had only gone and
planted your own two feet on the middle of the Carlsberg, you could
have had a view right into the garden, and could have seen Miss Felicia
walking about there dressed in curious old-German style, like the women
in those pictures--there was no need for you to go to Italy. Afterwards
the old man--but that is a sad story" "Never mind; go on," said
Traugott, hoarsely. "Yes," continued the broker. "Young Brandstetter
came back from England, saw Miss Felicia, and fell in love with her.
Coming unexpectedly upon the young lady in the garden, he fell upon his
knees before her in romantic fashion, and swore that he would wed her
and deliver her from the tyrannical slavery in which her father kept
her. Close behind the young people, without their having observed it,
stood the old man; and the very self-same moment in which Felicia said,
'I will be yours,' he fell down with a stifled scream, and was dead as
a door nail. It's said he looked very very hideous--all blue and
bloody, because he had by some inexplicable means burst an artery.
After that Miss Felicia could not bear young Brandstetter at all, and
at last she married Mathesius, criminal and aulic counsellor, of
Marienwerder. Your honour, as an old flame, should go and see the _Frau
Kriminalraethin_. Marienwerder is not so far, you know, as your real
Italian Sorrento. The good lady is said to be very comfortable and to
have enriched the world with divers children."

Silent and crushed, Traugott hastened from the Hall. This issue of his
adventure filled him with awe and dread. "No, it is not she--it is not
she!" he cried. "It is not Felicia, that divine image which enkindled
an infinite longing in my bosom, whom I followed into yon distant land,
seeing her before me everywhere where I went like my star of fortune,
twinkling and glittering with sweet hopes. Felicia--_Kriminalraethin_
Mathesius! Ha! Ha! Ha!--_Kriminalraethin_ Mathesius!" Traugott, shaken
by extreme sensations of misery, laughed aloud and hastened in his
usual way through the Oliva Gate along the Langfuhr[11] to t