of the house. Frederick heard her, and put his
head out of the door to inquire after Ingigerd.

"The signorina dropped on the couch without undressing and fell right
asleep," she said.

Frederick feeling somewhat uneasy went with Petronilla to look after
Ingigerd, and found that she had merely succumbed to a leaden sleep. Her
constitution, after weeks of over-exertion and abuse, was asserting its
rights. Petronilla and the maid undressed her and put her to bed, all
unconscious, though now and then opening wide her shimmering sea-green
eyes.

II

Frederick washed and went down-stairs to the basement with Willy Snyders.
Here there was a tidy little dining-room with a table set for eight. As
in the other rooms, the floors were of brick, and the walls half-way up
were hung with burlap. Where the burlap ended, a narrow shelf ran around
the entire room, set with all sorts of household utensils, chiefly
_fiaschi_ of wine in straw cases. Like everything else about the place,
the napery was exquisitely clean.

Willy in the meantime had in his droll, lively way fully informed
Frederick of the character and purpose of this extremely comfortable
house. It was leased by a group of German artists, whose main prop was a
sculptor of twenty-eight by the name of Ritter. Willy lauded Ritter as a
genius. He had entered upon a career in the New World most remarkable for
a man of his age. Among his patrons were the Astors, the Goulds, and the
Vanderbilts; and he had received most of the orders for exterior
sculpture work on the buildings of the Chicago Exposition. Willy called
Ritter "a devil of a fellow," and praised him for his "smartness."

In a corner of the dining-room, in the halls and on the stairway
landings, were reproductions of Ritter's works. Willy extolled them to
the skies; Frederick honestly admired them. The large bas-relief in the
corner of the dining-room represented a group of singing boys, for which
Ritter, probably at the suggestion of his customer, a Vanderbilt or an
Astor, had used the famous relief of Luca della Robbia as a model. In
style, nobility and freshness, his work surpassed anything then being
done in Germany.

Another sculptor partaking of the benefits of the club-house was a friend
of Ritter, who helped him with his work. Like Ritter, Lobkowitz was a
native Austrian. The fourth member of the group was Franck, a painter
from Silesia, an impecunious eccentric, upon whose talents his comrades