"She might readily see," he said, "that it referred to that wretched lawsuit with the Heimlicher. The poor's advocate did not deserve, indeed, that a man should interest himself in _his_ favour; but then, you see, he had an _admirable_ wife, who _did_ deserve it." (He italicised the word "admirable" by means of a hurried squeeze of her hand.) "He had been fortunate enough to induce Herr von Blaise to defer his 'no' three separate times, though he had not as yet been able to speak to the advocate in person. But now, that a pasquinade of Mr. Leibgeber's (whose hand was well known), had come to light near a stove-statue at the Heimlicher's, nothing approximating to a yielding, or a payment of the trust-fund, was to be dreamt of for a moment. Now this was a state of matters for which his very heart bled, particularly as, since he had been in such poor health of late, he felt only too keen a sympathy and interest in everything; he knew perfectly well what an unhappy condition her (Lenette's) household matters had been placed in by this lawsuit; and had often sighed, in vain, over many things. He should be delighted, therefore, to advance whatever she might require for current expenditure. As yet she did not know _him_ in the slightest degree, and perhaps could scarce surmise what he did, from motives of the purest benevolence, for six charities in Kuhschnappel--though he could produce documentary evidence if she liked," and he did produce and hand to her six receipts of the Charitable Commission. I should not be giving proof of that impartiality of character which I bear the reputation of possessing, did I not here freely admit, and clearly place on record, that the Venner had, from his youth up, always shown a certain disposition to benefit and assist the poor of both sexes, and that his consciousness that he dealt in this large-hearted manner, did (when compared with the narrow close-fistedness prevalent in Kuhschnappel) give him some warrant for bearing himself with a certain amount of proper pride towards those mean and miserly beings who sate in judgment upon his little genial breaches of the moral laws. For his conscience bore him witness that, conversely to the process whereby spiders are metamorphosed into jewels, he spun his shining webs (of gold and silver), and in their meshes, wet with the glittering dew of tears, made an occasional capture from time to time. But for a woman like Lenette (he continued) he would do things of a much grander description; as proofs of which, given already by him, he needed only to point to the fact that he had set at defiance the Heimlicher's hostility towards her husband, and that he had more than once quietly swallowed speeches of her husband's own, such as in his social position he had never suffered anybody to address to him before. "Name any sum of money you are in want of; by Heaven, all you have to do is to ask for it."