"Look here!" continued Schnetz, with his peculiar, dry chuckle. "If you like, I'll introduce you to the young lady, and resign all my rights. You will then have an opportunity to become acquainted with the sweetness of such service, and will perhaps make out better than I, who certainly have not succeeded in winning my way to favor. This proud little person--provided, by-the-way, with a pair of eyes that are equally well fitted to rule, to be gracious, and to condemn one forever--has unfortunately never felt a strong hand over her. The consequence is, she has a way of always setting up her own wishes on every subject, among others in regard to this unfortunate engagement. She appears to have made it so hot for the good youth who had the courage to take up with her, that at last he couldn't stand it any longer. It is very probable that she was sorry for this at heart, and so at the present moment she is in a decidedly irritable and discontented mood, and it is dangerous to touch her without gloves. Unfortunately I neglected to use this consideration; and, as a consequence, we stand on a most charming war-footing toward one another." He struck his boot impatiently with his riding-whip, put his left arm through his young companion's right, and, striding rapidly forward with his long legs, growled out: "It's enough to drive a man wild when he sees how God's images are disfigured--whether by saints or devils, it's all the same. Either confined by strait-lacing or by nuns' robes, or else _décolletées_ to the very waist. Believe me, my dear fellow, as far as the education of the women of the upper classes is concerned, we are not much farther advanced to-day than we were in the darkest middle ages, when a brothel stood next door to a church. At least, we, down here in our envied South, are not; though, to be sure, this Northern blood--" "A North German?"