to the street. Half a dozen
neighbours were grouped by the door.

'What 's the matter in Master Groschen's house now?' one asked, as he
plunged into the midst of them.

'Matter?' quoth the joy-drunken youth, catching at the word, and mused
off into raptures; 'There never was such happiness! 'Tis paradise
within, exile without. But what exile! A star ever in the heavens
to lighten the road and cheer the path of the banished one'; and he
loosened his vest and hugged the cold shaft on his breast.

'What are you talking and capering at, fellow?' exclaimed another:
'Can't you answer about those shrieks, like a Christian, you that have
just come out of the house? Why, there's shrieking now! It 's a woman.
Thousand thunders! it sounds like the Frau Lisbeth's voice. What can be
happening to her?'

'Perhaps she's on fire,' was coolly suggested between two or three.

'Pity to see the old house burnt,' remarked one.

'House! The woman, man! the woman!'

'Ah!' replied the other, an ancient inhabitant of Cologne, shaking his
head, 'the house is oldest!'

Farina, now recovering his senses, heard shrieks that he recognized
as possible in the case of Aunt Lisbeth dreading the wickedness of
an opposing sex, and alarmed by the inrush of old Gottlieb's numerous
guests. To confirm him, she soon appeared, and hung herself halfway out
of one of the upper windows, calling desperately to St. Ursula for aid.
He thanked the old lady in his heart for giving him a pretext to enter
Paradise again; but before even love could speed him, Frau Lisbeth was
seized and dragged remorselessly out of sight, and he and the rosy room
darkened together.

Farina twice strode off to the Rhine-stream; as many times he returned.
It was hard to be away from her. It was harder to be near and not close.
His heart flamed into jealousy of the stranger. Everything threatened to
overturn his slight but lofty structure of bliss so suddenly shot into
the heavens. He had but to remember that his hand was on the silver
arrow, and a radiance broke upon his countenance, and a calm fell upon
his breast. 'It was a plight of her troth to me,' mused the youth. 'She
loves me! She would not trust her frank heart to speak. Oh, generous
young girl! what am I to dare hope for such a prize? for I never can
be worthy. And she is one who, giving her heart, gives it all. Do I not
know her? How lovely she looked thanking the stranger! The blue of her
eyes, the warm-lighted blue, s