Ludwig had requested that there should be no demonstrations of pleasure at Johann Leopold's reappearance in the family circle; and when the convalescent joined them, the Freiherr, Aunt Thekla, and Johanna greeted him quietly as if he had not been absent. Leo, however, would not be repressed; he leaped up upon the friend whom he had so long missed, barking loudly, and nearly knocked him down. At this moment Magelone entered the room. "Johann Leopold!" she cried joyously, and, hastening to him, she took his hand in both her own and looked up at him with sparkling eyes. He grew paler than before. "Do not trouble yourself,--I know all you would say. I know my friends," he said, in a tone audible only to herself, as he withdrew his hand. She changed color, but the next moment she smiled again, and, with a slight shrug, took her usual seat at the window. Aunt Thekla, who had heard nothing, but had observed the manner of the two, looked anxiously at her brother, who, however, was talking with Ludwig, pacing the room to and fro the while, and seemed to have noticed nothing of the meeting. "Leave us! No, my dear doctor, you must not think of it," he said now, pausing in his walk. "After all the sad days which you have passed with us, you must learn something of the cheerful side of Dönninghausen." "Cheerful side!" Magelone repeated to herself, casting an expressive look upwards, while the Freiherr added, "You said lately that you were about to write a book; do it here." "Thank you, Herr von Dönninghausen," Ludwig replied; "but I could find no leisure here for writing. Good work must be done among those who work too." The Freiherr tossed his head. "There we have the arrogance of the scholar," he said, and his eyes flashed beneath his bent brows. "Do you mean to imply that I do not work?" Ludwig smiled. "Let us make a distinction. You work at your good pleasure as the whim seizes you, while the work to which I allude must be the result of a certain outward or inward pressure. Moreover, the projected book will not be written at present. I am going to India." "And you tell us this only when you are just going away?" Johanna cried, reproachfully; and Aunt Thekla asked, dropping her work in her lap, "For heaven's sake, my dear doctor, what can you want in India?" Ludwig came to the window where they were sitting. "Study, madame," he said. "An expedition, half scientific, half mercantile, is about to start for Gujerat and the Vindhya Mountains. I join it as physician. Moreover, my final decision was made only to-day." "What does your father say to it?" asked Johanna. "Of course he made all sorts of objections at first, but gradually he relinquished his opposition, and now he admits that the journey will be of great advantage to me."