"No," cried Sabine, holding out her hand, "not so, my friend. If there have been hours in which you have pained me, there have been others in which I have looked up to you in admiration; and this is the very reason that keeps us apart forever. I can never be at rest near you; I am constantly tossed from one extreme of feeling to another; I am not sure of you, nor ever should be. I should have to conceal this inward conflict in a relation where my whole nature ought to be open to you, and you would find that out, and would be angry with me." She gave him her hand. Fink bent low over the little hand, and pressed a kiss upon it. "Blessings on your future!" said Sabine, trembling all over. "If ever you have spent a happy hour among us, oh! think of it when far away. If ever in the German merchant's house, in the career of my brother, you have found any thing to respect, think, oh! think of it in that far country. In the different life that awaits you, in the great enterprises, the wild struggles that you will engage in, never think slightly of us and of our quiet ways;" and she held her left hand over his head, like an anxious mother blessing her parting darling. Fink pressed her right hand firmly in his own; both looked long into each other's eyes, and both faces were pale. At last Fink said, in his deep, melodious voice, "Fare you well!" "Fare you well!" replied she, so low that he hardly caught the words. He walked slowly away, while she looked after him motionless, as one who watches the vanishing of an apparition. When the merchant, after the close of his day's work, went into his sister's room, Sabine flew to meet him, and, clasping him in her arms, laid her head on his breast. "What is it, my child?" inquired he, anxiously stroking back her hair from her damp brow. "Fink has been with me; I have been speaking with him." "About what? Has he been disagreeable? Has he made you an offer?" asked the merchant, in jest. "He has made me an offer," said Sabine. Her brother started: "And you, my sister?" "I have done what you might expect me to do--I shall not see him again." Tears started at the words; she took her brother's hand and kissed it. "Do not be angry with me for weeping. I am still a little shaken: it will soon pass." "My precious sister--dear, dear Sabine!" cried the merchant; "I can not but fear that you thought of me when you refused." "I thought of you and of your self-sacrificing, duty-loving life, and his bright form lost the fair colors in which I had once seen it clothed." "Sabine, you have made a sacrifice for my sake," cried her brother. "No, Traugott; if this has been a sacrifice, I have made it to the home where I have grown up under your care, and to the memory of our good parents, whose blessing rests on our quiet life." It was late when Fink re-entered Anton's room; he looked heated, threw his hat on the table, himself on the sofa, and said to his friend, "Before any thing else, give me a cigar."