know how to mention
the subject without figures, I can hardly handle it except with
poetic figures," exclaimed he gaily, seating himself in Louise's
rocking--chair, rocking himself. "Speaking in the commonest prose, my
remarks refer to the last victim immolated to your highness--to the
last brand kindled by the fire of your eyes. To talk quite broadly, I
mean the millionaire and landholder Seraphin Gerlach, who is head and
ears in love with you. Considered from a business and solid point of
view, it is exceedingly flattering for the banker's brother to see his
sister adored by so considerable a sum of money."

"Madman, you profane the noblest feelings of the heart," she chidingly
said, with a smile.

"I am a man of business, my dear child, and am acquainted with no
sanctuary but the exchange. Relations of a tender nature, noble
feelings of the heart, lying as they do without the domain of
speculation, are to me something incomprehensible and not at all
desirable. On the other hand, I entertain for two millions of money a
most prodigious sympathy, and a love that casts the flames of all your
heroes and heroines of romance into the shade. Meanwhile, my sweet
little sister, there are two aspects to everything. An alliance between
our house and two millions of florins claims admiration, 'tis true; yet
it is accompanied with difficulties which require serious reflection."
The banker actually ceased rocking and grew serious.

"Might I ask a solution of your enigma?"

"All jesting aside, Louise, this alliance is not altogether free from
risks," answered he. "Just consider the contrast between yourself and
Seraphin Gerlach's good nature is touching, and his credulous
simplicity is calculated to excite apprehension. Guided, imposed upon,
entirely bewitched by religious phantasms, he gropes about in the
darkness of superstition. You, on the contrary, sneer at what Seraphin
cherishes as holy, and despise such religious nonsense. Reflect now
upon the enormous contrast between yourself and the gentleman whom fate
and your father's shrewdness have selected for your husband. Honestly,
I am in dread. I am already beginning to dream of divorce and every
possible tale of scandal, which would not be precisely propitious for
our firm."

"What contradictions!" exclaimed the beauty with self-reliance. "You
just a moment ago announced my triumph over Seraphin, and now you
proclaim my defeat."

"Your defeat! Not at all! But I apprehen