"I'll tell you, Charles. The parson's going to tell you himself, so why shouldn't I? Fred Triddelfitz fell in love with you sometime ago, most likely because of the good fatherly advice you have often given him, and now it seems his love for you has passed on to your daughter. Love always passes on, for example with me from your sister to Mina."--"Do be serious, Bräsig!"--"Am I not always in earnest, Charles, when I speak of your sister and Mina?"--"I am sure you are," cried Hawermann, seizing his friend's hand again in spite of the nettles, "but, tell me, what had Frank to do with it?"--"I think that he must have fallen in love with you too, and that his love has also passed on from you to your daughter."--"That would be a great pity," cried Hawermann, "a very great pity. God only knows how it's to be stopped."--"I'm not so sure, Charles, that you're right in thinking it a misfortune, for he has two estates ...."--"Don't talk about that Bräsig, but come in and tell me all that you know." As soon as Bräsig had told as much as he knew of the affair, he set off down the foot-path that led to Rexow. Hawermann stood and watched him till he was out of sight, and then said to himself; "He's a good man, his heart's in the right place, and if I find that it is so, I will .... but .... but ....!"--He was not thinking of Bräsig when he said this, but of Frank.---- On this Sunday morning young Joseph was sitting in his easy chair beside the parlour-fire waiting to be called to breakfast. Lina and Mina had spread the cloth and arranged dishes of ham, sausages, bread, and butter neatly on the table, and now that everything else was ready, Mrs. Nüssler came in carrying a skillet with hot buttered eggs: "Come along, Joseph," she said, "don't let the eggs get cold," and then she left the room again to see that all was going on rightly outside. The eggs were still bubbling and sputtering in the skillet--but young Joseph did not move. Whether it was because he had not yet finished his pipe, and felt that he ought not to be deprived of his customary smoke before breakfast, or whether it was because he had fallen into a brown study over the two letters which were lying open on his knee, cannot be known with any certainty. But whatever the cause may have been he did not move, and kept staring straight before him at one particular spot under the stove. And on that spot at which he was staring lay young Bolster, who was staring back at him. Young Bolster was the last descendant of the Bolster family, and had been born and brought up in, the house since old Joseph's time; When he was spoken to he was called "Bolster," but he was always spoken of as the "crown-prince," not for his own sake, no, but for Joseph's sake, for this was the only joke--if indeed it might be called one--that he had been able to make on the dog after long consideration.