heaven. "Let it be so," she said
to Peter Steinmarc after a few days of weak vacillation,--"let it be
so. I think that it will be good for her." Then Peter Steinmarc swore
that it would be good for Linda--that it should be good for Linda.
His care should be so great that Linda might never doubt the good.
"Peter Steinmarc, I am thinking of her soul," said Madame Staubach.
"I am thinking of that too," said Peter; "one has, you know, to think
of everything in turns."

Then there came to be a little difficulty as to the manner in which
the proposition should be first made to Linda Tressel. Madame
Staubach thought that it should be made by Peter himself, but Peter
was of opinion that if the ice were first broken by Madame Staubach,
final success might be more probably achieved. "She owes you
obedience, my friend, and she owes me none, as yet," said Peter.
There seemed to be so much of truth in this that Madame Staubach
yielded, and undertook to make the first overture to Linda on behalf
of her lover.

CHAPTER II

Linda Tressel was a tall, light-built, active young woman, in full
health, by no means a fine lady, very able and very willing to assist
Tetchen in the work of the house, or rather to be assisted by Tetchen
in doing it, and fit at all points to be the wife of any young
burgher in Nuremberg. And she was very pretty withal, with eager,
speaking eyes, and soft luxurious tresses, not black, but of so very
dark a brown as to be counted black in some lights. It was her aunt's
care to have these tresses confined, so that nothing of their wayward
obstinacy in curling might be seen by the eyes of men; and Linda
strove to obey her aunt, but the curls would sometimes be too strong
for Linda, and would be seen over her shoulders and across her back,
tempting the eyes of men sorely. Peter Steinmarc had so seen them
many a time, and thought much of them when the offer of Linda's hand
was first made to him. Her face, like that of her aunt, was oval in
its form, and her complexion was dark and clear. But perhaps her
greatest beauty consisted in the half-soft, half-wild expression of
her face, which, while it seemed to declare to the world that she was
mild, gentle, and, for the most part, silent, gave a vague, doubtful
promise of something that might be beyond, if only her nature were
sufficiently awakened, creating a hope and mysterious longing for
something more than might be expected from a girl brought up under
the