s Minna Engelken. This good creature--but
there they come now down the stairs. You can make their acquaintance at
once."

CHAPTER V.

It was certainly an odd pair that they found waiting in the yard. The
battle-painter, an animated young fellow, with a clear, bright, rosy
complexion, wore an enormous gray felt hat, with a small cock's-feather
in the band; and an abundant red beard, that looked as queerly against
his pink-and-white face as though a girl had tied a false beard round
her chin, in the attempt to disguise herself as a brigand. Looking at
the face closely, there was a decidedly spirited and manly look in the
clear blue eyes, while a merry laugh lurked constantly about the mobile
mouth. Beside him, his companion--though she was apparently still under
thirty--seemed almost as though she might be his mother, there was such
a weighty seriousness and prompt decision in her movements. She had one
of those faces in which one never sees whether they are pretty or ugly;
her mouth was a little large, perhaps; her eyes were bright and full of
life, and her figure was rather short and thickset. She wore her hair
cut short under a simple Leghorn hat; but in the rest of her dress
there was nothing especially conspicuous.

Jansen introduced Felix, and a few commonplaces were exchanged. After
her first glance at him, Angelica whispered something to the sculptor
that evidently related to the stately figure of his friend, and its
likeness to the bust she had seen in his studio. Then all four strolled
along the Schwanthalerstrasse, followed by the dog, which kept close
behind Felix, and from time to time rubbed its nose against his hand.

They stopped before a pretty one-story house in the suburb, standing in
the middle of a neatly-kept garden. Rosenbusch took his flute out of
his pocket, and played the beginning of the air "Bei Maennern, welche
Liebe fuehlen." But nothing stirred in the house, although the upper
windows were only closed with blinds, and every note rang out far and
clear in the hot noonday air.

"Fat Rossel is either asleep or else he pretends he is, so as to shirk
our high mass again," said the painter, putting up his flute. "I think
we had better go on."

"_Andiamo!_" said Angelica, nodding. (She had once passed a year in
Italy, and certain everyday Italian phrases had a way of slipping
involuntarily from her lips every minute or two.)

The conversation, as they