she felt a proud joy that
she could look up to her husband; and at the same time a sense of
humility slid into her heart, she bowed herself over his hand, and
kissed it fervently.

This did not please the Judge, because, like every other decided and
powerful man, it gratified him rather to pay homage to woman than, at
least by outward bearing, to receive homage from her. He therefore
withdrew his hand with some displeasure.

"Why may I not kiss your hand," inquired Elise, "if it give me
pleasure?"

"Because it gives me no pleasure, and you must not do it again."

"Well, well, dear friend, you need not forbid it so sternly. Perhaps I
shall never again have the desire to do it."

"All the better," said he.

"Perhaps not!" returned Elise. "But let us now go to rest."

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

THE NEW HOUSE.

"Farewell, oh house of my childhood! Farewell, you walls, insensible
witnesses of my first tears, my first smiles, and my first false steps
on the slippery path of life--of my first acquaintance with water-gruel
and A B C! Thou corner, in which I stood with lessons difficult to be
learned; and thou, in which I in vain endeavoured to tame the most
thankless of all created things, a fly and a caterpillar!--you floors,
which have sustained me sporting and quarrelling with my beloved brother
and sisters!--you papers, which I have torn in my search after imagined
treasures;--you, the theatre of my battles with carafts and
drinking-glasses--of my heroic actions in manifold ways, I bid you a
long farewell, and go to live in new scenes of action--to have new
adventures and new fate!"

Thus spake Petrea Frank, whilst, with dignified gestures, she took a
tragic-comic farewell of the home which she and her family were now
about to leave.

It was a rainy day, in the middle of April. A black silk cloak, called
merrily the "Court-preacher," a piece of property held in common by the
Frank family, and a large red umbrella, called likewise the
"Family-roof," which was common property too, were on this day seen in
active promenade on the streets of the city of X----. What all this
passing to and fro denoted might probably be conjectured if one had seen
them accompanied by a tall, fair, blue-eyed maid-servant, and a little
brown, active, servant-man, carrying bandboxes, baskets, packages, etc.,
etc.

Towards twilight might have been seen, likewise, the tall thin figure of
Jeremias Munter, holding the "family-roof