en to pay their creditors in
this coin which had imparted to it so sudden and unexpected a value.
Gotzkowsky had received from his debtors upward of eight hundred
thousand dollars in this light coin, while his foreign creditors
absolutely refused to take them, and demanded the payment of their
debts in good money. Gotzkowsky, who, in consequence of his large and
extensive connections abroad, had about three hundred thousand dollars
in exchange against him, paid his creditors in gold of full weight,
and lost by these transactions three hundred thousand dollars in one
day.

Just at the moment when this heavy loss befell him, Elise appeared, to
welcome him. His heart sank as he beheld her, for as he looked at her
this loss appeared in its full magnitude; it seemed as if not he, but
his child, had lost a portion of her wealth.

Elise knew and suspected nothing. She only felt that she had been
repulsed, and she withdrew, deeply wounded and mortified, with the
vow never to run the risk again of such another rebuff, such another
humiliation.

Gotzkowsky lost in this hour, not only the three hundred thousand
dollars, but, what he valued above all earthly treasures, the
affection of his daughter, and both without any fault of his own.
Elise forced herself to close her heart against her father, or at
least to conquer her grief at the supposed indifference, or quiet,
lukewarm inclination. And yet this ardent heart longed for love, as
the plant longs for the sunshine which is to penetrate it, and ripen
it into wonderful bloom. Had the friend and companion of her youth,
Bertram, been near her, she would have confided all her sorrows to
him, and found consolation on his breast. But he had been absent for
about a year on his long journey; and Elise's heart, which had always
clung to him with a sisterly affection, became more and more alienated
from the friend of her youth.

But fate or perhaps her evil destiny ordained that, about this time,
she should make the acquaintance of a young man who quickly won the
love of her vacant heart, and filled its void.

This young man was Colonel Feodor von Brenda, whom the fortune of war
had thrown into Berlin.

Elise loved him. With joy and delight, with the unbounded confidence
of innocence, she gave her whole heart up to this new sensation.

And, indeed, this young colonel was a very brilliant and imposing
personage. He was one of those Russian aristocrats who, on the
Continent, in the