rawbacks, she was still a striking, I
might almost say a startling, creature, when you first looked at her.
And, though she only wore the plainest widow's weeds, I don't scruple to
assert that she was the most perfectly dressed woman I ever saw.

Minna made a modest attempt to present me in due form. Her mother put her
aside playfully, and held out both her long white powerful hands to me as
cordially as if we had known each other for years.

"I wait to prove other people before I accept them for my friends," she
said. "Mr. David, you have been more than kind to my daughter--and _you_
are my friend at our first meeting."

I believe I repeat the words exactly. I wish I could give any adequate
idea of the exquisite charm of voice and manner which accompanied them.

And yet, I was not at my ease with her--I was not drawn to her
irresistibly, as I had felt drawn to her daughter. Those dark, steady,
heavy-lidded eyes of hers seemed to be looking straight into my heart,
and surprising all my secrets. To say that I actually distrusted and
disliked her would be far from the truth. Distrust and dislike would have
protected me, in some degree at least, from feeling her influence as I
certainly did feel it. How that influence was exerted--whether it was
through her eyes, or through her manner, or, to speak the jargon of these
latter days, through some "magnetic emanation" from her, which invisibly
overpowered me--is more than I can possibly say. I can only report that
she contrived by slow degrees to subject the action of my will more and
more completely to the action of hers, until I found myself answering her
most insidious questions as unreservedly as if she had been in very truth
my intimate and trusted friend.

"And is this your first visit to Frankfort, Mr. David?" she began.

"Oh, no, madam! I have been at Frankfort on two former occasions."

"Ah, indeed? And have you always stayed with Mr. Keller?"

"Always."

She looked unaccountably interested when she heard that reply, brief as
it was.

"Then, of course, you are intimate with him," she said. "Intimate enough,
perhaps, to ask a favor or to introduce a friend?"

I made a futile attempt to answer this cautiously.

"As intimate, madam, as a young clerk in the business can hope to be with
a partner," I said.

"A clerk in the business?" she repeated. "I thought you lived in London,
with your aunt."

Here Minna interposed for the first time.

"You forget, mam