With these words she attempted to step into the house; but he, in his merry, audacious mood, could not restrain himself from quickly seizing her round the waist and giving the good girl, who looked positively pretty with her hood and her red cheeks, a sounding kiss upon the lips. But this was carrying the joke too far, in her opinion. "Herr von Rosebud," she said, in her coldest tone, "you have drunk more than is good for you, and are not entirely responsible for what you do. For that reason I can't be so severe upon your forgetfulness of all propriety as I otherwise should be. I will merely remark to you that my name is not Nanny, and that I wish you a very good-evening." She made him a formal courtesy, and attempted to slip quickly past him. But he held her fast by her cloak and said, in a droll, pathetic tone: "You wrong me greatly, Angelica. Truly, I have such a devilish respect for you, I honor you so boundlessly as the model of all womanly virtues, that I would rather eat my head than forget what I owe to you. But will you have the goodness to remember that we have sleighing now? and although we two have merely slid here on foot, still I thought myself entitled, as your true knight, to take this liberty. If this was an error, can you find it in your heart to condemn me for it to the eternal punishment of your direful wrath?" She could not help laughing at the crushed and penitential mien, which the cunning rascal knew so well how to assume. "Go!" she said, in her old tone again. "On Christmas night the Saviour came into the world to suffer for all sinners. And, perhaps, you may be forgiven too." "I thank you," he responded, very quietly. "And in token thereof, dear fellow-Christian, seal your solemn forgiveness, in the sight of this starry heaven, with a voluntary, sisterly kiss. No, you must not refuse me this, unless you want me to pass a sleepless night. You are no Philistine, dearest Angelica." "I wish I were one," she sighed. But then she kindly and without further resistance offered him her red lips, and said, once more: "Good-night, my dear Rosenbusch!" and the house-door closed between them. _BOOK VI_. CHAPTER I. The new year had come, but it brought little that was new. One day, about the middle of January, when a light snow was falling in large flakes, the carriage of the old countess had been standing for more than an hour before the hotel in which Irene was stopping with her uncle. The coachman, buried in his high-shouldered bearskin coat, had fallen into a doze, and the horses hung their heads and meekly suffered themselves to be covered with the falling snow. But it seemed as though the silent fall of the flakes would come to an end sooner than the storm of German and French phrases with which the lively old lady overwhelmed the young Fraeulein, who sat absently listening to her.