her,
she had one whose highest triumph was to hear people say, 'Your
daughter is handsome, but not nearly so handsome as you were when you
were a girl.' To be handsome is the chief pride of the Prankens. Bella
is unfortunately a development of that unhappy class of society, in
which people go to the theatre only to satirize and ridicule the
performance, to church only to make a formal reverence to the mercy of
God; in which women are held in low esteem unless they are handsome,
and know how, as age comes on, to intrigue, and to affect piety. Such a
being can say to herself: I have in the course of my life adorned with
flowers eight or ten hundred yards of canvas, for perfectly useless
sofa-cushions. Is that a life worth living? Now she has no children, no
natural fixed duties--"

"And just for these reasons," interrupted Eric, "Aunt Claudine, without
knowing it, will have a softening and tranquillizing influence; her
calm nature, which never has to renounce, because it never longs for
any change, seems just chosen for the work. However highly I value Frau
Bella, our friend's wife, for herself, we must think first of all that
we are fulfilling a duty to the noble Clodwig; it will establish anew
and increase the purity and beauty of his life."

"Well, Aunt Claudine is going to Wolfsgarten; and now leave me, my dear
son,--but no, I must tell you something, though it may seem childish.
When I saw you running so fast through the garden to-day, I thought of
your father's pleasure when he had been on a mountain excursion with
you; and once, when you were just eleven, when you had been in
Switzerland with him, he said on coming home, that his chief delight
had been in seeing you run up and down the mountains without once
slipping; and you never did get a fall, though your younger brother was
never without some bump or bruise."

It was with a glance of double meaning that she looked at Eric, as she
passed her hand over his face.

"But we have talked enough; now go. I must dress for dinner."

She kissed his forehead, and he left her; but outside the door, he
stopped and said, with folded hands:--

"I thank you. Eternal Powers, that you have left me my mother: she will
save us all."

CHAPTER VII.

STATISTICS OF LOVE.

When they assembled again at the villa, the Doctor chanced to be there.
Or was it not mere chance? Did he desire to note accurately, once for