Lenette answered these questions, and spoke her thanks for this consistorial decision by a bashful glance of restored content and a beaming face upturned towards him. She went to the kitchen, but kept constantly coming back and snuffing the candle, which was on the table at which the two gentlemen sat talking; and probably nobody, except the advocate and I, will consider this to be any indication of a more than ordinary liking for Stiefel. The latter always took the snuffers from her, saying "it was _his_ duty." Siebenkæs clearly perceived that both the apples of his eyes revolved, satellite-fashion, round his own planet, Lenette; but he did not grudge the Latin knight his little glimpse of an age of chivalry thus sweetened by a Dulcinea; like most men, he could far sooner pardon the rival lover than the unfaithful fair; women, on the other hand, hate the rival more than the unfaithful lover. Moreover, he knew perfectly that Stiefel had not the least idea himself whom or what he cared for or sighed for, and that he was a far better hand at reviewing schoolmen and authors than himself. For instance, his own anger he called professional zeal; his pride, the dignity due to his office; his passions, sins of weakness; and on this occasion love appeared to him disguised as mere philanthropy. The arch of Lenette's troth was firmly finished off in the keystone of religion, and the Venner's assault upon it had not shaken this sacred masonry in the slightest degree. At this juncture the postman stumped up stairs with a new constellation which he set in their serene family sky, namely, the following letter from Leibgeber. "Bayreuth, 21 Sept., 1785. "My dear Brother, Cousin, and Uncle, Father and Son! "For the two auricles and the two ventricles of thy heart constitute my entire genealogical tree:--as Adam, when he went for a walk, carried about with him the whole of his blood relations that were to be, and his long line of descendants--which is not wholly unreeled and wound up even at this day--till he became a father, and his wife bare a child. I wish to goodness I had been the first Adam! Siebenkæs, I do adjure you, let me, let me, follow up this idea which has struck me and taken hold of me with such power; let me not write a word in this letter that does not add a touch to the three-quarter-length portrait which I shall draw of myself as the first father of mankind!