still stood in a state of good preservation under a glass case upon her sideboard. Nevertheless rumor said of her that she had not always harshly repulsed the numerous offers she had received as a widow, though she had been too wise to give the slightest cause for public gossip. Certain ecclesiastical gentlemen, who were in the habit of going in and out of her house, gave her the best certificate of character; and though she did not close her door to young artists, she took care to see that they were proper, respectable people, who painted church pictures with long robes, and did not wear their shirt-collars after the fashion of too erratic genius; and that they held aloof from all pagan theories of art. To this godly way of life she owed it that her own godmother, the glove-maker's wife, had trusted her with "the children" for a day, although some malicious people pretended to think that to go gadding into the country was not exactly the thing for well-preserved widows. She was quite modestly dressed, but yet in such a way that her figure, already somewhat inclined to _embonpoint_, was shown to the best advantage. In her manner she kept a wise mean between the severe dignity which a God-fearing woman of an uncertain age usually maintains toward youthful giddiness, and a too free approval of the pranks that danced through her godchild's head. At the same time she did not try to keep the silent Felix from knowing that his slim, manly form had made an impression on her; though she was wise enough to do it so slyly as to give a motherly sort of aspect to her interest in him. It was only when the ungrateful man, whose poor soul was quite unconscious of its conquest, continued to walk at her side in complacent abstraction, casting furtive glances all around to see whether he was running directly in the way of her whom he must especially avoid--then only did she withdraw her favor from him and bestow it upon the insignificant Kohle, whom Rosenbusch had introduced to her as a painter of the severest style, a disciple of the great Cornelius, and one whom she needed only to make a better Christian in order to win in him a new pillar of ecclesiastical art. Kohle submitted to it all with a most patient smile, and really began to pay pronounced attention to this stately creature as well as he knew how, merely that he might not seem to stand in the way of the others' sport. They had been strolling up and down the shore for about a quarter of an hour in this way, when, as if without the slightest premeditation, the proposal was made that they should take an excursion on the water; a proposal which was accepted after a good deal of well-acted hesitation on the part of the godmother, and much entreating and flattering and coaxing on the part of the blonde Nanny.