at he gave
somebody a shove in the side there.

"Frida!"

She gave a little start. Who had accosted her so boldly?

"How do, Frida. How are you?"

She did not recognise him at first, but then she blushed and pouted.
What a gentleman Wolfgang had grown. And she answered a little pertly,
a little affectedly: "Very well, thanks, Mr. Wolfgang. Are you quite
well too?" and she threw her fair head back and laughed.

He would not hear of her calling him "Mr. Wolfgang." "Nonsense, what
are you thinking of?" And he was so cordial, so quite the Wolfgang of
former years, that she was soon on the old terms with him again. She
dropped her affectation entirely. They walked beside each other as
intimately as if almost a year had not passed since last they had
talked together.

"Young lovers," thought many a one who came across them strolling
along near the coppices in the Tiergarten. They had let their train
go--he had no wish to hurry home, at any rate--and so they walked
further and further in among the green trees, where it was already dark
and where even his light tennis suit and her light blouse could not be
distinguished any longer. The nightingales had grown silent long ago;
all that was heard was a girl's soft laugh now and then, which sounded
like the cooing of a dove, and the low whispers of invisible couples.
Whispers came from the benches that stood in the dark, summer dresses
rustled, burning cigars gleamed like glow-worms; all the seats
one came across were occupied. It was extremely close in the park.

Wolfgang and Frida spoke of Frau Laemke. "She's always ill, she has
had to go to the doctor so often," said the girl, and her voice
trembled with sincere grief. Wolfgang was very sorry.

When Frida came home that evening extremely late--the house had been
closed long before; Frau Laemke had already begun to get nervous, and
did not know how she should keep the roast potatoes warm--she threw her
arms round her mother's neck: "Mother, mummy, don't scold." And then it
came out with a rush, that she had met Wolfgang: "Wolfgang Schlieben,
you know. He was so nice, mother, you can't think how nice he was. Not
the slightest bit stuck-up. And he asked at once how you were, and when
I told him you had something the matter with your stomach and your
nerves, he was so sorry. And he said: 'You must get your mother out in
this beautiful weather,' and he gave me this bank-note--here, do you
see it, a green one. I did not want