"Nothing, darling," Johanna replied, hastily wiping her eyes. "What shall I tell you? Cinderella, or Snowdrop and the Dwarfs?" "No, no! nothing about bad step-mothers," the little girl exclaimed; and then, with her eyes opened to their widest extent, she went on: "Only think, Lina says that mamma is a step-mother,--so stupid of her,--my dear pretty mamma. Friedrich laughed at her, and told her it was not true; but then he is just as stupid himself, for he told her you were not my sister, only an adopted child, and I won't have it; you shall be my sister!" She stamped her little foot. Johanna took her in her arms. "Hush, darling; I am really your sister," she said, stroking the little curly head. "Then why were you not always with me?" Lisbeth went on, pettishly. "All the sisters I know are always together." "I was far away from here, at boarding-school," Johanna replied. "Papa sent me there when my poor dear mother died, and he did not know what to do with me. He travelled about from one town to another; and then he married your mamma, and then you were born, and he has grown very famous. I think he had almost forgotten me----" Here old Lina, Lisbeth's former nurse, entered. "Fräulein, a gentleman wishes to see you," she said, handing Johanna a card. "Dr. Ludwig Werner," the girl read, and started up with a joyous exclamation. "Uncle, dear uncle!" she cried, and hurried into the antechamber, where, however, instead of the old gentleman whom she had expected to see, she was met by a young man. "Johanna!" he exclaimed, with evident emotion, and he would have clasped her in his arms, but she retreated and only gave him her hand. He laughed, half confusedly, half derisively. "It is you!" she said, and her voice, too, trembled. "I thought it was your father. Pray come in." She led the way to the drawing-room. Lina, who was standing holding Lisbeth by the hand at the dressing-room door, looked after her in surprise. How could Fräulein Johanna receive so familiarly a young man who paid visits in a shooting-jacket and shabby crush hat? He himself became conscious of the contrast that he presented to his surroundings as soon as he entered the drawing-room. As he looked about him in the luxurious apartment, now lit up by the last rays of the September sun, all trace of tenderness vanished from his face, leaving there only the cynical expression which Johanna knew so well. "And this is now your home," he said. "I begin to understand,--I have not been able to do so hitherto. And you yourself,--are you as changed as your surroundings?" He had stepped out upon the balcony with her, and as he spoke looked at her fixedly. There was no change in the grave unembarrassed expression of the girl's large gray eyes as she returned his gaze. "What have you been unable to understand?" she asked. "How you could leave us and come hither--to this house----"