th asked, "that if you
are sure that Albertine is yours you will be off at once to Italy?"

"Why shouldn't I?" Edmund replied, "inasmuch as it is my firm
determination to do so? It always has been so, and would be so--if she
were to be mine (I have my doubts as to whether she over will or not").

"Well, Edmund," the Goldsmith said, "be of good courage. This firm
resolve of yours has gained you your sweetheart. I give you my word of
honour that in a very few days Albertine will be your affianced wife.
And you know well enough that you need have no doubt as to my having
the power to keep my word."

Joy and rapture beamed from Edmund's eyes; and the mysterious Goldsmith
went quickly away, leaving him to all the sweet hopes and dreams which
had been awakened in his heart.

In an out-of-the-way corner of the Thiergarten, under a shady tree, the
Clerk of the Privy Chancery, Mr. Tussmann, was lying "like a dropped
acorn," as Celia, in 'As You Like It,' expresses it, or like a wounded
knight, pouring forth his heart's complainings to the perfidious autumn
breeze.

"Oh, God of justice!" he lamented. "Unhappy, pitiable Clerk of the
Privy Chancery that you are! how did you ever come to deserve all the
misery which has fallen to your share? Thomasius says that the estate
of matrimony in no wise hinders the acquisition of wisdom. And yet,
though you have only been _thinking_ of entering into that estate, you
have nearly lost that proportion of understanding (and it was not so
very small, neither,) which originally fell to your share. Whence comes
the aversion which dear Miss Bosswinkel displays towards your--not
particularly striking, but still, fairly well endowed--personality? Are
you a politician, who ought not to take a wife (as some have laid
down), or an expert in the laws, who (according to Cleobolus) ought to
give his wife a licking if she misbehaves herself? Am I either of
those, that this beautiful creature should be warranted in entertaining
some certain quantum of bashful repugnance to me? Why, oh, why, dearest
Clerk of the Privy Chancery, Tussmann, must you go and get mixed up
with a lot of horrible wizards, and raging painters, who took your face
for a stretched canvas, and painted a Salvator Rosa picture on it
without saying with your leave or by your leave? Aye! that's the worst
of the business! I put all my trust in my friend, Herr Seccius, whose
knowledge of chemistry is so extensive and so profound, and who c