Count Malzin's dog-cart was soon one of the best-known turn-outs in the Prater; the picturesque, lovely child beside the handsome, distinguished man could not fail to attract notice. Siegi was always dressed in good taste, and his soft curls lay like gold upon his shoulders. From time to time his little face was turned up eagerly to his father with some childish question. Then Fritz would bend over him with a smile, and sometimes put his arm around him. It was a positive delight to see them thus together. Many a lady who since Fritz's marriage had returned his bow but coldly, now nodded to him kindly as they gazed after the child. Once on a lovely day in April, Fritz alighted from his dog-cart with his little son and took him to walk, as was customary in Vienna, in the Prater. He was surrounded in a few minutes by a group of ladies with whom he had formerly been acquainted. Siegi had a triumphant success, every one wanted a kiss or a pat from his little hand. "Exquisite!" exclaimed one after another. "What a little angel! Malzin, you must bring the child to see us." "Fritz, do bring him to see me to-morrow at five, my children take their dancing-lesson then. You will come, won't you? You know the way." And Fritz, flattered, smiled and bowed. * * * Since his marriage he had not gone into society; but for his boy's sake he accepted these invitations; the little fellow must learn to associate with his equals. Fritz resolved that he himself should alone endure the consequences of his folly, his son should not suffer from it. Although well-bred people of rank in their normal condition usually train their children to a conventional modesty of demeanour, Fritz, on the contrary, took pleasure in making his son almost haughty, he, whose own lack of all pretention had been a by-word! When pride stands on the defensive, it always deteriorates somewhat. * * * In spite of the modest scale of his household expenses, Fritz found to his surprise that during the first year he had spent just double his income. "It is always so the first year," he consoled himself by thinking, but when the second year was no better but much worse, the matter began to annoy him. At his card-parties, which were still kept up, although Charlotte but seldom appeared at them, (a relief usually purchased by Fritz with a box for her at the theatre,) one of the guests was a certain Baron Schneller, a good-natured, well-to-do fellow, who had no taste for earning money, and was in consequence rather in disgrace with his family, who showed great diligence in that direction. He squandered his income among antiquities and ballet-girls. His volunteer year he had served in Fritz's squadron.