As they drew up before Rossel's quarters--a plain little house in the Schwanthalerstrasse--they caught sight of a woman's head at the flower-framed window above; but it was instantly drawn in again. "Madame is at home," said Schnetz, with a smile. "Of course, she has been expecting your visit, and has probably arrayed herself in great style. Hold on tight to your heart, _triumphator_!" Upon arriving up-stairs, they were not received by the lady of the house herself, as he had expected, but by a servant-girl, who conducted them into the studio. In comparison with the luxuriously-furnished room in which their friend used to recline on his picturesque bear-skin in his own house, this one was very scantily decorated. There were no costly Gobelin tapestries, beautiful bronze vases, and brilliantly-polished pieces of furniture in the style of the Renaissance. But on some of the easels stood pictures in various stages of completion, and the artist himself advanced to meet them, in his shirt-sleeves and with his palette on his arm. "So here you are again!" he cried. "Now thanks be to all the gods that you have come back with sound limbs and unscratched faces! You have a fine piece of work behind you. Nor have we stay-at-homes been lazy in the mean while; and though not fighting for emperor and empire, we can at least say of ourselves that we have been working _pour le roi de Prusse_. But it makes no odds, let us hope for better times; in the mean while I am trying to drive away the blues with this daubing. For Heaven's sake, don't look at the things; they are wretched efforts, merely made in order to try my brush again. For that matter, you mustn't look about you here at all--_quantum mutatus ab illo!_ Of all my household goods, I have retained nothing but my Boecklin; a thing of that sort is like a tuning-fork when one has lost the key-note. Neither must you inspect me too closely. I am reduced, my dear fellows, very much reduced. You see I have shrunken to unnatural proportions; what has become of my rounded form? But, what could be expected when a man gets to work by eight o'clock every day, and so violates his holiest principles? But wait, I will go and call my wife. She is the thing best worth seeing in the whole house." He made his friends sit down on a small leather sofa that bore little resemblance to the celebrated "West-easterly" divan of former days, and ran out calling for his wife. In the mean while, they had time to look around. So much that was excellent met their view on all the canvases--such clearness, and simplicity in form and color--that they were moved to sincere enthusiasm, and eagerly expressed their delight to one another.