nce!" said the old man with his bitter smile:
"you take a fancy to Rose; you hear she is already engaged; this
drives you away from me; but before you take leave, your honour must
be cleared and furbisht up; and as a remembrance you shoot my most
intimate friend, the man after my own soul, and tear him from my side.
Now Rose is at liberty, you are your own master, your rival is got rid
of; and destiny has managed the whole matter admirably. But whether
this shot has not pierced through my heart, whether it has not rent
and burst asunder the innermost sanctuary of my soul ... these
questions are never thought of. There is as it were a huge chasm
yawning in my spirit ... confidence, faith ... everything ... did not
I say so? good is the only real evil ... Edward! don't look so sad ...
methinks I am talking quite wildly."

He took the young man's hand. "Bring me the mayor this evening, and
the priest and bailiff as witnesses. You are now my son, and this is
the spirit I shall now make my will in. I feel it is high time; for it
would be horrible if Helbach were to fling all my fortune to the dogs.
O if I could but totally forget this shot and Eleazar! if such wild
thoughts did not keep rushing about in my brain! Now you and Rose will
stay with me."

Edward withdrew. He went to look for Rose in her room. She burst out
a-crying, jumpt up from her chair, and threw herself into the young
man's arms with an expression of the fondest affection. "Alas Edward!"
she cried sobbing, and hid her face on his breast: "only look now at
what I have to go through in my youth. This was never sung over me in
my cradle, that I should lose my husband in so shocking a manner, and
even before our wedding. And the last thing I should have thought of
was that you were to shoot him dead, you, the dearest and kindest of
all men.--Alas! poor, poor Eleazar! when he came from nature's hands,
such an odious misshapen abortion of a man! And now into the bargain
to steal, to lie, and to cheat! to rob my good father, who meant to
give him everything! What will become of his poor soul now? Oh yes, he
has perisht still more cruelly, he is much more unhappy than my cat
with her kittens, that he shot so barbarously on the orange tree. Alas
Edward! are you then in real truth such a good creature, as I have
always believed you? or are you perchance very wicked too? You did not
mean it, did you? that Eleazar should die so?"

Edward took pains to explain the nat