circumstances.--"God bless me!" he exclaimed. "My sister! And that must be her daughter Lotta. This is her doing!" he cried as he rushed through the kitchen and out into the hall where he met Mrs. Nüssler, and said to her: "This is your doing, I know. Oh, you are ....."--At this moment the two women came into the entrance hall in very very simple dress, but they were both beautiful, _most_ beautiful! The elder with tears of joy and gratitude rolling down her kind, honest old face; and the younger with her bright unaffected manner, her large blue eyes and golden hair. The latter came forward at once and asked: "Where is my dear good uncle Zachariah?" she had only seen him once long ago when she was a little child.--"Here, here!" he cried, drawing his sister and niece forward to where Mrs. Nüssler was standing, and adding: "There she is. Thank her for this."--When the two women had told Mrs. Nüssler how happy she had made them by bringing them to Rexow, they looked round for Bräsig, but he was gone. He had forced his way through the heavy sack-like Nüsslers like a miller who had set his mill properly to work, and then had taken refuge in the arbour in the garden, where he employed himself in blowing such loud trumpet blasts on his nose, that Schulz, the carpenter, came out of the temple of art to see whether it was the musicians who were coming. But they did not appear until later. First of all Kurz and the rector came, each of them accompanied by his good old wife. When they had been in the parlour for some little time and had been introduced to the Nüssler family, uncle Lewis Nüssler, a thick-set, over-bearing sort of man, went up to Kurz, and said: "You may count yourself fortunate in having succeeded in arranging a marriage between your son and one of this family, for we are rich and well-to-do. Look," pointing at uncle Christian, who had just thrown himself on the sofa, "he's worth fifteen thousand pounds."--"I've got nothing to do with this," remarked uncle Christian. Kurz felt very cross, but he restrained all expression of his feelings for the time. Uncle Lewis went on to ask: "Did you ever see so many rich people in one room before?" and Kurz, who had now quite lost his temper, answered: "No, nor so many fools either!" He then turned away, and his wife, who had overheard what he had said came up to him, and whispered: "Pray, take care, Kurz. You're beginning your democratic ways here, and you'd much better go to bed." He would not do that, however, and he was shunned by all the Nüsslers for the rest of the evening.