No. 8.--"Aha! my dear, we can be jealous, can we? Who would have suspected Baron Harald Grenwitz of such plebeian foibles? I must change my lodgings--why? That I may not perish with cold in winter and with heat in summer; that I do not risk every day breaking my neck on the steep narrow staircase? Oh no! Simply because my good lord does not like Mrs. Black, with whom I live, and because my good lord has found out that a young Frenchman, a Monsieur d'Estein, lives on the same story with me; that I am quite well acquainted with said monsieur, and have actually been seen with him arm in arm late at night in the street! Horrible! But in good earnest, dearest Harald, you have no cause to complain. Mrs. Black is a very respectable, excellent woman, to whom I am deeply indebted, and who has been like a mother to me as far back as I can think; and as for Monsieur d'Estein, your jealousy will be lulled to sleep, I hope, when I tell you that he is the same little old gentleman on whose arm you saw me the first time in the Park. Monsieur d'Estein could very well be my father, and really was my father's friend. He is, like ourselves, descended from a family of French refugees, and would long since have gone back to the land of his fathers, since he has no relatives nor even friends here, if he was not justly afraid that he would starve there, since everybody there speaks the language which he here teaches to earn his daily bread. He is very eccentric, but the kindest heart in the world. He would go for me through fire and water, and be _au désespoir_ if he had the slightest suspicion of our friendship. All this I would have told you last night, but I wished to see if you could bear contradiction. Are you satisfied now? _Au revoir, Monsieur le baron_. "_Votre très méchante_ "Marie M." "This is the only notice about this Monsieur d'Estein," said Albert, letting the letter fall back in his lap, and puffing out clouds of reflection from his cigar; "no doubt the same man who afterwards reappears as the Jew pedler in the old woman's story, when he first reconnoitred the locality and then eloped with the oppressed Innocence. I fear several letters must have been lost here, because the next following note shows matters very much advanced."