For some few months after the events just described, the lives of those who form the characters of this little drama passed evenly on without the occurrence of any circumstance worthy of special record on the part of their historian. Mr. Beresford, implicitly following Mr. Simnel's advice, proceeded to lay siege to Mrs. Schröder in the manner agreed upon, and found his advances received very much after the fashion predicted by his astute friend. In all child-like simplicity Mrs. Schröder firmly believed in the baneful influence which she had unconsciously exercised over her admirer, and strove to make him amends by a charitable and sentimental pity. She could perfectly appreciate all his feelings; for was not she herself misunderstood? had her girlhood's dream been realised? what was wealth, what was position, to her? was she not mated with one who, &c.? So she not merely permitted but encouraged Mr. Beresford's fraternal sentiments; though she by no means eschewed the world and its frivolity, and gave herself up to solitary romance. On the contrary, she went out a great deal into society, and had frequent receptions at home; Beresford being her constant but always unobtrusive companion. It is difficult to say what motive about this time prompted a considerable change in Mr. Schröder's manner towards his wife; but some such change undoubtedly took place. It may possibly have been that the insufficiency of money as a source of happiness may have dawned upon him, steeped as he was to his very lips in constantly-increasing wealth. It may have been that he suddenly awoke to the fact that he was expected to lavish something more than generosity on the young girl whom he had made the head of his house, and who, as he thought, conducted herself with so much propriety. This new feeling may have had its germ one night when they were sitting in their grand-tier box at the Italian Opera, during the performance of _Der Freischütz_; and as the old familiar strains rang through the house, Gustav Schröder's memory travelled back for five-and-thirty years, and he saw himself a lad of seventeen, seated in the pit of a little German theatre by the side of a plump little girl, who wore a silver arrow through the great knot of her flaxen hair, and down whose cheeks tears were rolling as she listened to the recital of Agatha's woes. He had loved that plump little Kätchen, loved her with a boy's pure and ardent passion; and when sent to his uncle's counting-house at Frankfort, they had parted with bitter tears, and with the exchange of very cheap and worthless love-tokens. He wondered what had become of that five-groschen piece with the hole drilled through it, and the bit of red ribbon. He wondered why he had never loved since those days. And then he looked up and saw his pretty, elegant little wife, whom every one admired and praised; and it flashed upon him that he had never tried to break through the outer crust of staid formality with which business and the