"She might have educated the Prison Fairy;" thought _Heinrich_, and at last determined to ask her; but Veronica, without allowing herself to be interrupted, continued, with the loquacity of age: "I know they call me the Sensitive Plant, because I have preserved my quick feelings and ready tears; but I do not think they are mocking me, for they know I play no sentimental comedy, but rejoice with those who rejoice, and even follow with sincere interest the struggles of the age, although they do not please me. To me the only true voices are those that speak from sentiment and in its behalf; therefore I must confess that I prefer them to the modern spirit of speculation, piquant as it is, and shall listen to them devoutly until death some day solves for me the mystery of life." She again glanced at the clock and made _Heinrich_ a confused apology for having chattered so long. _Heinrich_ could do nothing but take leave, and was compelled to defer receiving the ardently desired assurance until the morrow; he bowed as low and as frequently as possible, and withdrew from the apartment as slowly as he could. The lock of the door stuck in his hand as if it were bewitched, and he was so absentminded that he was obliged to pause some time in the ante-chamber to remember which was the way out; he did not know where he was or what he was doing. Meantime bitter reflections upon his hasty dismissal, his own strange embarrassment, which had made the harmless question falter on his lips more and more the longer he delayed it, until at last he could no longer utter it; upon the old lady's loquacity, which had not allowed him to speak: in short, the striking of a large cuckoo-clock, which also seemed to jeer at him, first made him aware that he must at last leave the house. With a despairing glance at the different doors he went away, and on reaching the carriage could not help laughing at himself. _Heinrich_ scoffed at _Henri_, and _Henri_ derided _Heinrich_. An impulse of rejoicing over something, he knew not what, overpowered him. X. PROGRESS.