About thirty years before, their father, during a holiday excursion, had made their mother's acquaintance; he was then a young law-student from Silesia, and she the beautiful daughter of the owner of a small estate in Holstein, who had other views for his favorite child than to give her to the first embryo Prussian lawyer, who had enjoyed a few days' hospitality at his house. And yet no objections were made. All, who knew the young girl, declared that it had always been impossible to oppose her quietly expressed wishes; she had possessed so much power over all minds, both by her great beauty and the gentle nobleness of her nature, which in everything she did and said always seemed to hit the right mark, with that almost prophetic insight into the confused affairs of the world, which is said to have been peculiar to German seeresses. What particular attractions she found in the unassuming stranger, that she wanted him and no one else for her husband, was not easy to discover. Yet to her last hour she had no occasion to repent, that, with firm resolution, beneath which perhaps passionate emotions were concealed, she had aided in removing all the obstacles that stood in the way of a speedy marriage. As she herself brought little dowry, except her wealth of golden hair, which when unbound must have reached nearly to her knees, and as the young lawyer had still a long time of probation before him ere he could establish a home of his own, they would have had little happiness if both or either had considered themselves too good for a subordinate position. The post of bookkeeper in one of the largest institutions in Berlin had just become vacant. When the young jurist applied for it, he was forced to hear from all quarters that he was doing far from wisely in resigning his profession and giving up all chance of rising to higher offices and dignities, merely for the sake of an early and certain maintenance. He declared that he knew what he was doing, and, as he had the best testimonials, drove his competitors from the field, and, after a betrothal of a few months, installed his beautiful young wife in the comfortable lodgings assigned to the accountant.