ife and children in it,
of things dear and compelling, for which I could stake my life; and I
tasted the sweetness of one of those moments which do their best to
broaden our hearts, to strengthen them and renew their allegiance.

All at once she stopped speaking, and when I did not notice this she
cried out, "Senhor, are you again failing to listen to me!" "Oh, yes.
Henrique Bleyle has put up at auction a cargo of furnishing goods--"

"_O nao, senhor_, not at all! But you are a discourteous
good-for-nothing; you think, 'Just let her talk!'"

"Missed by a mile, my child! I have been listening to you without
hearing what you said. Look, when I sit down on the curb of a fountain
and let myself be enveloped and captivated by its splashing and
tinkling, its silvery spraying, and forget everything, even the
fountain, and think uncommonly pure and good thoughts--don't these
thoughts come from the fountain? Do I not hear them in its plashing,
even though I no longer hear the sound of it, and am I, in this
absentmindedness, not more the bondman of the fountain than if I had
counted its drops of water? That is how it was just now. While I
listened to your voice and felt your eye upon me, I learned something
better from you than that Bleyle has socks for sale. Nevertheless, I
shall buy the socks from him. But that you help me in my vanity and
hastiness not merely to let serious thoughts enter my mind when they
come like a stroke of lightning, but also quietly and modestly to admit
them, to await them, and to attain to the inner core of their
sweetness--that is to me more delightful and more important than all
the cargoes of all the continents."

She looked at me with childlike confidence, put her little, warm hand
on mine, and said, "You are not angry with me, Erwin?"

"How could I be angry with you for that? Is there a human being who
could be angry with you? See, Mariandel, the only pain you cause me is
the fact that I am not the only one who can take nothing ill of you!"

"Oh!" she cried, laughing down her shamefacedness like a school-girl,
"just ask my brother and his wife whether they cannot take anything ill
of me!"

"Then they are not human beings. There aren't so very many."

"No, my brother is good," she replied, "and Anna too."

"In any case, I shall prove to you that I am ready to help my
fellow-man. I shall buy of Henrique Bleyle a complete new outfit from
head to foot, and hope thereby to save him from bankr