ong since sunk into oblivion. Had Malvine been
something more than good-natured and commonplace, had she possessed a
little more tact and insight into the human heart, she would have seen
that in Wilhelm were now combined all the conditions necessary for
predisposing him for marriage--the sense of a spiritual void, the
longing for love and companionship, a consciousness of being alone in
the midst of a cheerful, peaceful family circle, and the desire to see
his own life renewed in that of a child. What he needed was that some
one should frankly make the first advances, and overcome his natural
shyness and diffidence by a bold and saucy attack. With a little tact
and diplomacy, a clever woman would have had no difficulty in putting
up a bright girl to attempt so easy a fight and victory. But Malvine
never thought of such a thing. Social etiquette withheld the various
young ladies on whom the Habers' quiet guest had made no small
impression from taking those first steps, which are considered
unwomanly and humiliating, although in most cases they invariably bring
about the desired results, and so Wilhelm continued to sit in his
corner, and the group of pretty heiresses in theirs; the winter passed,
and Malvine's darling wish was still unfulfilled.

Easter came round, and with it the migration of the family to
Friesenmoor House. Wilhelm would have liked to seize this opportunity
for withdrawing himself from a hospitality which weighed heavily on
him, but Paul put down his timid revolt with a high hand.

"None of that now. You are coming with us, and can see what country
life is like for a whole summer," he declared, and there the matter
rested.

The estate and its surroundings possessed no picturesque charms. The
land stretched in uniform flatness from the sluggish Suderelbe to the
equally sleepy Seeve, and the Fuchsberg at Ronneburg, with its height
of two hundred feet, was a giant of the Alps or Cordilleras, compared
to the floor-like evenness of the country round about. From the
platform of the tower which Paul had built on to his house, giving it
quite a baronial appearance, one could see for miles across country,
almost to Hamburg, the spires of which were plainly visible on a clear
day. But far and near one saw nothing but cornfields and meadows, that
had the regularity of a carpet pattern, intersected by clay-colored
dikes, straight ditches full of stagnant brown water, here and there a
busy windmill, and in the d