rd toward his former
comrade although they were not in the same regiment, and my husband has
taken a morbid, I mean enthusiastic fancy to the young man. You are
quite right; your husband is bound--"

Bella did her work so securely, that she felt sure that the Justice
would go to Sonnenkamp before evening, and Herr Dournay might make the
most of his confident bearing somewhere else, for Bella wished, on many
accounts, that Eric should not be established in the neighborhood; he
caused her uneasiness, almost pain indeed. As she tapped one hand with
the closed fan which she held tightly grasped in the other, she
inwardly repeated the words of the Justice: This Dournay is a dangerous
man.

The Justice's wife was a woman of democratic principles; she was the
daughter of a Chief-Justice who had offered unbending resistance at the
time when Metternich ruled Germany, and, besides, she had a comfortable
property of her own, which helps one to keep to liberal ideas. She felt
a sort of democratic pride in not yielding anything to the nobility;
but she saw in Frau Bella an amiable, highly intellectual lady, and she
submitted to her, without acknowledging to herself that her submission
amounted to subserviency toward a countess. Bella was acute enough to
see and understand it all, and treated the Justice's wife with that
confidence which is shown only to equals; but she took care to be more
than usually amiable, that the Justice's wife might attribute her visit
to some other than the real object.

Lina entered the room, looking like a charming little housekeeper in
her blue dress, and high-necked, white apron. Her mother sent her away
again very soon, as the child must not be present if the gracious lady
had still any private matter to speak of.

"Your dear child has developed finely, and she speaks very good
French."

"Thank you," said the mother. "I don't know much of the young people
of the present day; but Lina is still so slow, there's nothing piquant
about her, and she is frightfully simple. Just think, the child has
formed a fancy--how she ever got hold of such ideas in the convent, is
a mystery to me--but only imagine, she believes that this Herr Captain
Dournay has forced himself in as Roland's tutor, only because he is
secretly in love with Fraeulein Manna, whom he saw at the convent."

Frau Bella pretended much surprise, and heard the story of the meeting
with Eric again, but the Justice's wife soon led the conversa