graceful form. And that was Gertrude Baumhagen!

She assented. "I am not afraid for myself, but I am sure you would
never find your way out of this maze of streets into which my good
Johanna has enticed you. This part about here is quite the oldest part
of the town. You cannot see it this evening, but by daylight a walk
through this quarter would well repay you. I like this neighborhood,
though only people of the lower class live here," she continued,
walking with a firm step on the slippery pavement.

"Do you see down there on the corner that house with the great stone
steps in front and the bench under the tree? My grandmother was born in
that house, and the tree is a Spanish lilac. Grandfather fell in love
with her as she sat one evening under the tree rocking her youngest
brother. She has often told me about it. The lilac was in blossom and
she was just eighteen. Isn't it a perfect little poem?"

Then she laughed softly. "But I am telling you all this and I don't
know in the least what you think of such things."

They were just opposite the small house with the lilac tree. He stopped
and looked up. She perceived it and said: "I can never go by without
having happy thoughts and pleasant memories. Never was there a dearer
grandmother, she was so simple and so good." And as he was silent she
added, as if in explanation, "She was a granddaughter of the foreman in
grandpapa's factory."

Still nothing occurred to him to say and he could not utter a merely
conventional phrase.

She too remained silent for a while. "May I ask you," she then began,
"not to give too many presents to the baby--they are simple people who
might be easily spoiled."

He assented. "A man like me is so unpractical," he said, by way of
excuse. "I did not exactly know what was expected of me after I had
offered myself as godfather in such an intrusive manner."

"That was no intrusion, that was a feeling of humanity, Mr. Linden."

"I was afraid I might have seemed to you, too impulsive--too--" he
stopped.

"O no, no," she interrupted earnestly. "What can you think of me? I can
easily tell the true from the false--I was really very glad," she
added, with some hesitation.

"I thank you," he said.

And then they walked on in silence through the streets;--Gertrude
Baumhagen stopped before a flower-store behind whose great glass panes
a wealth of roses, violets and camellias glowed.

"Our ways separate here," she said, as she gave him her h