s she directed her sad
steps toward the door. Now she stands on the threshold; now her
trembling hand clasps the bright handle of the lock, but still she
hesitates to open it; she still hopes for a word, if even an angry
one, from her father.

And now she hears it. Like an angel's voice does it sound in her
ear. He calls her name, he reaches his hand out to her, and says with
infinite, touching gentleness, "Give me your hand, Elise. Come here to
me, my child--it is so long since I have seen you!"

She turned to him, and yet she dared not look upon him. Seizing his
offered hand, she pressed it to her lips. "And do you remember that
you have been so long absent? You have not then forgotten me?"

"Forgot you!" cried her father tenderly; and then immediately, as if
ashamed of this outburst of fatherly love, he added calmly and almost
sternly--"I have much to talk with you, Elise. You have accused me."

Elise interrupted him with anxious haste: "I was beside myself," said
she, confused and bashfully. "Forgive me, my father; passion made me
unjust."

"No, it only developed what lay hidden in your heart," said
Gotzkowsky; and the recollection of that unhappy hour roughened his
voice, and filled his heart with sadness. "For the first time, you
were candid with me. I may have been guilty of it all, but still it
hurts!" For a moment he was silent, and sank his head on his breast,
completely overpowered by painful reminiscences.

Elise answered nothing, but the sight of his pale and visibly
exhausted countenance moved her to tears.

When Gotzkowsky raised his head again, his face had resumed its usual
determination and energy. "We will talk over these things another
time," said he seriously. "Only this one thing, remember. I will not
restrain you in any way, and I have never done so. You are mistress
of every thing that belongs to me except my honor. This I myself must
keep unsullied. As a German gentleman I cannot bring the dishonor upon
me of seeing my daughter unite herself to the enemy of my country--to
a Russian. Choose some German man: whoever he may he, I will welcome
him whom you love as my son, and renounce the wishes and plans I have
so long entertained. But never will I give my consent to the union of
my only child with a Russian."

While he spoke the expression of the countenance of both changed
surprisingly. Both evinced determination, defiance, and anger, and the
charm which love had laid for a moment on th