r letter from
Fritz?"

The blubbering voice of Joseph, trembling for his situation, on the
landing outside, interrupted me before I could speak again.

"I'm sure I meant no harm, sir. I only said I was in a hurry to get back,
because you had all gone to the theater, and I was left (with nobody but
the kitchen girl) to take care of the house. When the lady came, and
showed me her drawing-book----"

"That will do, friend Joseph," said the widow, signing to him to go
downstairs in her easy self-possessed way. "Mr. David is too sensible to
take notice of trifles. There! there! go down," She turned to me, with an
expression of playful surprise. "How very serious you look!" she said
gaily.

"It might have been serious for _you,_ Madame Fontaine, if Mr. Keller had
returned to the house to fetch his opera-glass himself."

"Ah! he has left his opera-glass behind him? Let me help you to look for
it. I have done my sketch; I am quite at your service." She forestalled
me in finding the opera-glass. "I really had no other chance of making a
study of the chimney-piece," she went on, as she handed the glass to me.
"Impossible to ask Mr. Engelman to let me in again, after what happened
on the last occasion. And, if I must confess it, there is another motive
besides my admiration for the chimney-piece. You know how poor we are.
The man who keeps the picture-shop in the Zeil is willing to employ me.
He can always sell these memorials of old Frankfort to English travelers.
Even the few forms he gives me will find two half-starved women in
housekeeping money for a week."

It was all very plausible; and perhaps (in my innocent days before I met
with Frau Meyer) I might have thought it quite likely to be true. In my
present frame of mind, I only asked the widow if I might see her sketch.

She shook her head, and sheltered the drawing-book again under her shawl.

"It is little better than a memorandum at present," she explained. "Wait
till I have touched it up, and made it saleable--and I will show it to
you with pleasure. You will not make mischief, Mr. David, by mentioning
my act of artistic invasion to either of the old gentlemen? It shall not
be repeated--I give you my word of honor. There is poor Joseph, too. You
don't want to ruin a well-meaning lad, by getting him turned out of his
place? Of course not! We part as friends who understand each other, don't
we? Minna would have sent her love and thanks, if she had known I was to