"Now she is nervous, as all women are who lead a merely fashionable existence," said Ludwig. "I hear that she is one of the most elegant and popular women in Vienna; but she declares that she is bored to death, and that nothing can make her happy save a reconciliation with her family----" "Do not credit that, my dear doctor!" exclaimed Johann Leopold. "Magelone was never happy here. Our life is too simple, too serious for her. I cannot understand why she wants to come back." "She simply and solely wants some kind of reality. We are not created to lead only the life of butterflies. If we delay in furnishing ourselves with some worthy interest, we shall be driven to seek it by our innate, and often unconscious, desire for it. With Magelone there is also the wayward humour of the child, who always wants most the plaything it cannot have. The Freiherr, she told me with a burst of tears, had declared that he never would receive her again unless she came alone and a beggar. And she appeared to consider the well-invested millions which her father-in-law has left as a terrible misfortune. And it was just so with her husband's devotion, without which, nevertheless, she assured me in piteous tones, she could not live; but then just as little could she forego Dönninghausen any longer. Finally, with another burst of tears, she declared that her childlessness was a punishment from heaven for marrying without the consent of her family. She appears to have entirely forgotten her far graver transgressions in another direction." Johann Leopold smiled bitterly. "That is like her!" he said. "Moreover, in this matter the question is not of _her_ sensations. How about Johanna? Could she agree to meet Magelone here?" "I took her approval as a matter of course," said Ludwig. "In fact, I asked her to help me in the work of reconciliation. Magnanimous as she is----" An appeal from the Freiherr interrupted him. "Come and help me, doctor." And when Ludwig approached, he went on: "I hope you will be more reasonable than Johanna, who seriously proposes to carry Lisbeth off. It is out of the question. The little thing has grown into our very hearts, the Herr Pastor is an excellent instructor for her, and in every way she is better off here than in the city with such vagabonds as you. Pronounce the word of command, my dear Werner, as a physician and a husband." Ludwig shook his head, with a smile. "The affair must be settled by friendly agreement. Johanna is not used to words of command. As for the vagabondage, however, all that is at an end. Lectures, patients, the completion of what Johanna calls my fever-book, her own work, compel us to be domestic." "And we are glad to be so," said Johanna. "You call us vagabonds, dear grandfather. Did you never hear the proverb, 'A vagabond has the truest love for home'?" The Freiherr shook his head dubiously. "We shall see!" he said. "When the University holidays come you'll pack up and go off."