"Who gave you the right to remember me, and to assist your memory so obviously?" replied the woman, measuring him somewhat coldly and scornfully with her keen blue eyes. She gradually raised herself to an upright position; and as the hood fell upon her shoulders, he saw the fine contour of her head, and in spite of his embarrassment, continued to study her with an artist's eye. "In truth, I must confess that I have behaved like a veritable highwayman," he replied, trying to turn the matter into a jest; "but perhaps you will allow mercy to precede justice, when I return my booty, not with intent to propitiate justice, but to show you how little it is that I have appropriated." He offered her the open sketch-book. She cast a hasty glance at her picture; then nodded kindly, though with a quick gesture of rejection. "It is like," she said, "but idealized. You are a portrait painter, sir?" "No, my lady; in that case I could have made the sketch really characteristic. I paint architectural pictures mainly. But just because my eyes are sharpened for beautiful proportions and graceful lines, and as they are not found in a human face every day--" At a loss for a conclusion, he stared at the tip of his boot, attempted to smile, and blushed again. Without noticing this, the stranger said, "Doubtless you have some of your sketches and paintings in that portfolio there. May I see them?" "Certainly." He handed her the portfolio, and spread the contents sheet by sheet before her. They were mere aquarelles, representing in a versatile manner and with thoroughly artistic conception old buildings, Gothic turrets, and streets of gabled houses. The stranger allowed one after the other to pass, without addressing any questions to the artist. But she studied many pages for a long time, and returned them with a certain hesitation. "The things are not perfectly finished yet," said he, excusing this and that hasty study, "but they all belong to the same cycle. I availed myself of Easter day to talk them over with an art-dealer in Nuremberg. I wish to publish all these sketches in chromo-lithographic work. To be sure, I have many predecessors, but Rothenburg is not even yet as well known as it deserves to be." "Rothenburg?" "Certainly. These are all views from Rothenburg. I thought you knew it, my lady, as you did not ask." "Rothenburg? Where is it?" "Oh, on the Tauber, not many hours' journey from here. But really, do you not know it? Have you never even heard the name?" "You must pardon my ignorance," she replied, with a slight smile, "as I am not a German. But I have been with Germans very often, and confess to you, I never heard the name of Rothenburg on the--how was it?--on the Tauber?--until now." He laughed, losing his timidity at once as he realized his advantage over this elegant woman on such an important point.