all, the relation between Eric and Bella?

He saluted the Professorin with great respect; she said she must
confess that her husband, who made a point of mentioning frequently his
distant friends, had never uttered, to the best of her recollection,
the name of Doctor Richard.

"And yet I was a friend of his," cried the Doctor in a loud tone.

After a while, he said in a low voice: "I must be honest with you, and
tell you that I was only a little acquainted with your husband; but
your father-in-law was my teacher. I introduced myself, however, to
your son as the friend of your husband, because this seemed to me the
readiest way to be of service to him, exposed as he is here, in the
house and in its connections, to a variety of perils."

The Professorin warmly expressed her obligation to him, but her heart
contracted again. This man had evidently alluded to Bella.

The Artist who had painted the portrait of the Wine-count's daughter
was there; and soon the Priest came too, and regret was expressed that
the Major could not be present, having gone to celebrate St. John's day
in the neighborhood; he considered everything appertaining to the
Masonic order in the nature of a military duty.

The company in general were in a genial mood. The Doctor asked the
painter how he got along with his picture of Potiphar's wife.

The Artist invited the company to visit shortly the studio, which Herr
von Endlich had fitted up for him for the summer months.

"Strange!" cried the Doctor. "We always speak of Potiphar's wife, and
we don't know what her own name was; she takes the name of her husband,
and you artists don't refrain from painting nude beauties with more or
less fidelity. The chaste Joseph presents always an extremely
contemptible figure, and perhaps because the world thinks that the
chaste Joseph is always a more or less contemptible figure. AEneas and
Dido are just such another constellation, but AEneas is not looked upon
in so contemptuous a way as the Egyptian Joseph."

It was painful to hear the Doctor talk in this style.

The Priest said:--

"This narrative in the Old Testament is the correlative to that of the
adulteress in the New; and after a thousand years, the harmony is
rendered complete. The Old Testament strikes the discordant note; the
New Testament brings it to the accordant pitch."

Clodwig was exceedingly delighted with this exposition; there was
something of the student-nature in him, and he was a