n agony of
haste--'never breathe it's the old man I've been talking about--never
breathe it--it's Professor Nieberlein himself!'

'_What?_' exclaimed Brosy, flushing all over his face.

But the Professor took no notice of any of us, for he was diligently
kissing Charlotte. He kissed her first on one cheek, then he kissed her
on the other cheek, then he pulled her ears, then he tickled her under
the chin, and he beamed upon her all the while with such an
uninterrupted radiance that the coldest heart must have glowed only to
see it.

'So here I meet thee, little treasure?' he cried. 'Here once more thy
twitter falls upon my ears? I knew at once thy little chirp. I heard it
above all the drinking noises. "Come, come," I said to myself, "if that
is not the little Lot!" And chirping the self-same tune I know of old,
in the beautiful English tongue: Turn not your back on a creature, turn
not your back. Only on the old husband one turns the pretty back--what?
Fie, fie, the naughty little Lot!'

I protest I never saw a stranger sight than this of Charlotte being
toyed with. And the rigidity of her!

'How _charming_ the simple German ways are,' cried Mrs. Harvey-Browne in
a great flutter to me while the toying was going on. She was so torn by
horror at what she had said and by rapture at meeting the Professor,
that she hardly knew what she was doing. 'It really does one good to be
given a peep at genuine family emotions. Delightful Professor. You heard
what he said to the Duke after he had gone all the way to Bonn on
purpose to see him? And my dear Frau X., _such_ a Duke!' And she
whispered the name in my ear as though it were altogether too great to
be said aloud.

I conceded by a nod that he was a very superior duke; but what the
Professor said to him I never heard, for at that moment Charlotte
dropped back into her chair and the Professor immediately scrambled (I
fear there is no other word, he did scramble) into the next one to her,
which was Brosy's.

'Will you kindly present me?' said Brosy to Charlotte, standing
reverential and bare-headed before the great man.

'Ah, I know you, my young friend, already,' said the Professor genially.
'We have just been admiring Nature together.'

At this the bishop's wife blushed, deeply, thoroughly, a thing I suppose
she had not done for years, and cast a supplicating look at Charlotte,
who sat rigid with her eyes on her plate. Brosy blushed too and bowed
profoundly. 'I canno