astonishment. Joseph, who sat beside him, drew back a little, and stared at him in blank amazement, that any one man could pour forth such a stream of words. Bräsig peered round the corner at him from behind Joseph, and winked at Hawermann as much as to say: "Didn't I tell you, Charles, that he was a regular greyhound?"--Hawermann kept his eyes fixed on his plate, and looked angry. Mrs. Nüssler was anxious and ill at ease, feeling that as hostess it would hardly do for her to desire her guest to be quiet, and to choose a different style of conversation. The pastor shook his head gravely, while little Mrs. Behrens gave more decided tokens of disapprobation by burying her chin in her breast till her cap-ribbons were almost lost to view, and by flouncing up and down on her chair as if it were too hot for her; but when Fred began to describe the schottish, and told how the gentleman puts his arm round the lady's waist, she started up exclaiming: "Don't any of you speak! I'm his Aunt, and am therefore the nearest to him. Come here Fred."--And when Fred rose slowly, and approached her with an air of high-bred nonchalance, she seized him by the lappel of his coat, and pulling him towards the door, said: "Come, my dear boy, come away with me," and so left the room with him. They could all hear the murmur of Mrs. Behrens' voice as she lectured her nephew, her words flowed on uninterruptedly in spite of his protestations until she had finished what she wanted to say, when she reopened the door, and leading Fred into the room, pointed to his chair, and said: "Sit down there, and speak like a reasonable mortal." Fred did as he was bid, that is to say, he obeyed the first command; the second was too hard for him. How was it possible to talk sensibly after having begun by talking sentimentally, and so make a flat ending to a well begun conversation.--Frank and the three children gradually resumed their former merry talk, while the older people spoke about graver subjects, and so the conversational coach rolled on smoothly, except when Bräsig drove it against a stone with a sudden jerk. Mrs. Behrens managed to act the part of moral policeman towards the offender while taking her full share in the conversation of the elders, and Fred sat silently fuming, and pouring punch, like oil, on the flames of his wrath, internally stigmatising Frank as a "sneak," and the little girls as "silly baggages," who understood nothing of the ways of polite society. But notwithstanding the contempt he felt for the society of such mere children, he was seized with a certain feeling of jealousy, when he saw, as he imagined, that Frank liked talking to Louisa Hawermann best of all, he made up his mind to put an end to that state of things, and to try what he, Fred Triddelfitz could do, that is to say, when his aunt was not there.