“I have really no right to ask you to sit down in this house,” he said, with a smile that he could not make unkindly, “but if you will do so, I do not suppose any one will object.” “Perhaps,” said the pastor, slightly bewildered by this mode of address, and not quite sure that he had fully understood his interlocutor. He sank vaguely into the nearest chair, and gazed around him so helplessly that his companion, partly from pity and partly from a certain nervousness which he would by no means have acknowledged, was impelled to continue the conversation. “You are a German, and a minister, _nicht wahr?_” he said, in the other’s native language. “_Ja, gewiss!_” said the pastor delightedly. “I am the Pastor of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church.” “So? And you find the sheep of your pasture obey your words? or is the crook sometimes needful to coerce them into the right way?” “They are as good as other people,” returned the pastor, relapsing into bewilderment. His questioner shrugged slightly his shapely shoulders, as he turned away to his old position. “You are happy if they are no worse,” he said. At the same moment, he started into sudden vigor and alertness, with a gleam in his eye that told of eagerness for the fray. A heavy silk curtain that hung beside the fireplace was suddenly swept aside, with an angry rattle of rings upon a brass rod, and in the opening appeared a handsome, stately, well-dressed woman, of something more than his own age. “Dr. Richards, I will speak with you in a moment; I wish I could say that I am glad to see you. Herr Schaefer, you wish to see Fräulein Dora?” Her tone was sharply military rather than rude; but contrasted a little absurdly with the meek obsequiousness of the pastor’s reply. “If you permit me, gracious lady,” he said, executing his fifth bow. “I shall be delighted if you can make her see the error of her present course,” said Mrs. Randolph. “You have heard of her betrothal, I suppose? Betrothal, indeed! Upon my word, I think all the girls have gone crazy together!” The corners of Dr. Richards’s mouth twitched amusedly. “So?” he said, under his breath; but perhaps the lady caught the sound, or saw the movement of his lips in the mirror, for she grew suddenly very red as she motioned the pastor towards the doorway. “You will find a servant just beyond, who will direct you,” she said, “and I hope you will succeed in convincing Fräulein Dora that marriage to one of Karl Metzerott’s opinions can bring her nothing but misery. And now, Dr. Richards”— “If you will pardon the interruption,” said that young man easily, “I wish to say that, although quite unacquainted with the peculiar tenets of the person referred to, I am entirely at one with you in believing marriage to one of _any_ opinions so exceedingly likely to lead to misery that an opposite result can only be considered a happy accident.” Mrs. Randolph stared into his calm face with angry amazement.