It was Sunday morning. The office was closed, and Reinhold at last had a free morning before him, which certainly was seldom his good fortune. He was in the garden house, to the entire and special possession of which he had at last attained, to be sure only after many struggles and by repeated reference to his musical studies, which were considered highly disturbing in the house. It was here alone that the young man was in any degree safe from the constant control of his parents-in-law, which extended even into the young couple's dwelling, and he seized every free moment to take refuge in his asylum. The so-called "garden" was of the only description possible in an old, narrowly-built, densely populated town. On all sides high walls and gables enclosed the small piece of ground, to which air and sunshine were sparingly given, and where a few trees and shrubs enjoyed but a miserable existence. The garden's boundary was one of those small canals, which traversed the town in all directions, and whose quick, dark stream formed a very melancholy background; beyond this, again, walls and gables were to be seen; the same prison-like appearance, which clung to Almbach's whole house seemed to reign over the only free space belonging to it. The garden house itself was not much more cheerful--the single large room was furnished with more than simplicity. Evidently the few old-fashioned pieces of furniture had been set aside from some other place as superfluous, and been sought out in order to fit up the room with what was absolutely necessary. Only in the window, round which climbed some stunted vines, stood a large, handsome piano, the legacy of the late Music Director, Wilkens, to his pupil, and its magnificent appearance contrasted as singularly and strangely with the room as did the figure of the young man, with his ideal brow and large flashing eyes, behind the barred office windows of the dwelling-house. Reinhold was sitting writing at the table, but to-day his face did not wear the tired, listless expression, which rested upon it whenever he had the figures of the account books before him; his cheeks were darkly, almost feverishly red, and as he wrote a name rapidly on the envelope, lying on the table, his hands trembled as if with suppressed excitement. Steps were heard outside, and the glass door was opened; with a quick gesture of annoyance the young man pushed the envelope under the sheets of music lying on the table, and turned round. It was Jonas, servant of the Captain, who for a few days only had accepted the hospitality offered by his relations, and then had migrated to a dwelling of his own. The sailor saluted and entered in his peculiarly rough and somewhat uncouth manner, and then laid some books on the table. "The Herr Captain's compliments, and he sends the promised books from his travelling library." "Is my brother not coming himself?" asked Reinhold astonished. "He promised surely."