empowered me to convey her assent." The further course also of this very exciting business was extraordinary and dramatic. The happy lover had settled that his wooer should obtain for him more certain information. Now, it is true that a written line in this scribbling age might have been possible, but it appears that written information was considered too prolix, and it was undoubtedly then difficult to give it in one line without titles and congratulations; so it was determined that, as in "Tristan and Isolde," the result of an undertaking was telegraphed by a black or a white seal, so here by the transmission of a certain volume of a valuable legal work of the state chancery, it was to be signified that the proposal was accepted; another volume of the same work would have intimated the contrary. And the difference of the new conscientious period from the old one of Queen Isolde consisted only in this, that no false signal would be given. But though in this union the heart to a certain degree asserted its rights, it was less often the case with men of education and capacity. Professor Achenwall, a distinguished law teacher at Goettingen, made an offer to a daughter of Johann Jacob Moser without ever having seen her, and she in like manner accepted; after her death he married a Demoiselle Jaeger, of Gotha, to whom he proposed after he had seen her accidentally on a journey, passing some days in the house of an acquaintance. Thus it was generally the position and the household which was the object of women, as it still is in many circles of the people. The quiet dreams of the candidates for matrimony were frequently exactly as portrayed by the sober-minded Puetter: "The meals at the _restaurant_ did not answer to their wishes; to eat alone was not to their mind; fellow-boarders were not to be reckoned upon; the household cares concerning the wash, beer, and sugar were disagreeable occupations; and in the evening, when tired after work, to pay visits to others when one did not know whether it was opportune, or to await the visits of others who were themselves in the same dilemma,--all these were circumstances of consideration, experience, and observation, which seemed to prove that one could not be happy continually in one's present position." Undoubtedly also the importance of this step was not all underrated: quiet deliberation lasted long, and a secret wavering between eligible parties was frequent. Therefore in general the matter was left to a benevolent Providence; and an accidental meeting, or the pressing recommendation of a certain person, was still always considered as a sign from above.