"Will you do it?" she whispered, handing the perfumed sheet to Johann Leopold. And shading his eyes with his hand so as to shield his face from observation, he read clearly and calmly,-- "Forgive me, dearest and best of aunts, for coming to you with a request the fulfilment of which is no trifle. But I know your kindness, and I know, too, from life-long experience, that even when you are displeased with me you are always trying to excuse me both in thought and word. Do it now to grandpapa, and love me still. I rely upon you. "If my confession were only made! Or if I only knew how to begin! The beginning is simply that I was quite as unable to endure life in the Walburg Dorcas-meetings as in the Wildenhayn nursery. I told you, soon after my going to the Walburgs, of my bitter disappointment in the imperial city of Vienna. But since then the philanthropic craze of the mother and the virtuous fanaticism of the daughters have increased to such a degree that they nearly drove me wild. Now please don't look angry, dear Aunt Thekla! Does not even Goethe say,--it's the only thing of his I ever remembered,-- 'Rather pursue evil courses than be thus bored'? "I wrote you of our Charity bazaar. I had a table at it. The children of darkness have the reputation of greater wisdom than the children of light, and I really did a brilliant business. Not one was left of all the abominations confided to the watchful care of my beautiful eyes. Most of them were bought by a young and elegant man, who appeared morning and afternoon of each of the three days that the fair lasted, and paid furious court to me. Chance--or let us call it Providence--so willed it that we had a common acquaintance, at whose house we met again, and I learned to know his parents. Mamma, short, stout, _decolletée_, and loaded with diamonds; papa, tall, thin, with bony hands, and a genius for money-making. His father slaughtered oxen; he slaughtered estates, then engaged in some of these new-fangled speculations, and is said to have accumulated several millions. His wife is an innkeeper's daughter. Her paternal mansion is still to be seen in K---- Street. Both were charming to me. Both shared in their son's wishes,--that is, they thirsted for my blue blood, while he coveted my entire self. The poor fellow is really head over ears in love with me, which, in contrast with his usual _blasé_ condition, produces a comically pathetic effect. I knew only too well that grandpapa never would give his consent; so at last I carried out a _coup d'état_ which Pepi--his baptismal name is Felix--devised. It was impossible for us to be married in Vienna with no pomp or parade. It would have been too great a blow to parental vanity. So I took leave of the Walburgs to