t draw back, as from a stranger, from
her whom it is to call mother?"

She gazed in his face with a look of the deepest faith and tenderness,
and reached him her hand across the table at which they were both
sitting. He grasped it so tightly that she smilingly tried to withdraw
it again.

"Perhaps you are right," said he, seriously. "At all events I think you
understand all these things far better than I do, for to tell the
truth, I am still so stunned with the thought of this happiness, that
you could make me consent to anything you asked. Good God! with what a
heart I came in that door--a doomed man, a lost wretch--and now, and
always--"

He was just on the point of starting up again--the place at her feet
which the dog had occupied seemed to have an attraction for him--when
they heard old Erich's voice in the front parlor, saying to some one,
in its driest tone, that his mistress was not at home for anybody
today.

"Not even for me?" queried this some one. "I must hear her say so
herself before I will believe it."

"Angelica!" cried Julie. "We ought not to shut out this dear creature
from our happiness."

She sprang up and hastened out before her friend--to whom any third
person was hateful at such a moment--could make any objection.

"Don't be afraid of him!" she cried, leading the astonished Angelica
into the room triumphantly. "It is true he is a perfect Berserker, and
not a good man to quarrel with. But for that very reason you must take
my part against him. Two staid women of our age ought to have no
difficulty in controlling such a violent man. And isn't it your duty to
help me out of the trouble into which you got me yourself? Dear Jansen,
do not put on such an angry face! Tell this dear, good, astonished
friend that we are resolved, in all seriousness, never again to lose
sight of one another after having been brought together in so strange a
way, thanks to art and to this excellent artist, whom we will not leave
without her reward!"

There was nothing left for Jansen but to make the best of the matter,
and say a few friendly words to Angelica. But his whole soul was in
such commotion that he soon relapsed into a state of absentmindedness.
He listened with half an ear to what his beloved was saying to
Angelica, who did not sustain her part of the conversation very well,
and who uttered none of those bright sayings with which she was
generally so ready. That the two women friends should take up thei