"She it was who charged me to warn you," replied Göschen, with a sigh. "For this very reason, that you first met Madame von Arnim and her daughter in her house, does she consider it her duty to warn you and show you the abyss at your feet. At this first interview, she noticed with alarm how deep an impression the rare beauty of Miss von Arnim made on you, and how you afterwards ran blindly into the net which the old spider, the speculative mother, had set for you. This Madame von Arnim is the widow of a Saxon officer, who left her nothing but his name and his debts. She lives on a small pension given her by the king, and has, it seems, obtained a few thousand dollars from some rich relative; with this sum she has come to Dresden, where she proposes to carry out her speculation--that is, to keep house here for some little time, and to entertain society, and, above all, rich young cavaliers, among whom she hopes to find an eligible suitor for her daughter. This at least is no calumny, but Madame von Arnim very naively admitted as much to my sister-in-law, Sophie Albrecht, calling her attention to the droll circumstance, that the first candidate who presented himself was no other than a poor poet, who could offer her daughter neither rank, title, nor fortune. When Sophie reminded her that Frederick Schiller could give her daughter the high rank and title of a poet, and adorn her brow with the diamond crown of immortal renown, the sagacious lady shrugged her shoulders, and remarked that a crown of real diamonds would be far more acceptable, and that she had far rather see her daughter crowned with the coronet of a countess than with the most radiant poet's crown conceivable. And she already had the prospect of obtaining such a one for her daughter; the poet's admiration for her beautiful daughter had already made her quite a celebrity." "You are still speaking of the mother, and of the mother only," murmured Schiller. "I know that this woman is sordid, and that she would, at any time, sell her daughter for wealth and rank, although purchased with her child's happiness. But what do I care for the mother! Speak to me of the daughter, for she it is whom I love--she is my hope, my future." "My poor friend," sighed Körner, as he stepped forward and laid his hand on Schiller's shoulder. This touch and these words of sympathy startled Schiller. "Do not lament over me, but make your accusations," cried Schiller, and he shook his golden lion's mane angrily. "Speak, what charges can you prefer against Marie von Arnim? But I already know what your reply would be. You would say that she has been infected by the pitiful worldly wisdom of her scheming mother, and that I am nothing more to her than the ornament with which she adorns herself for another suitor."