"Perhaps you have caused a rupture with him for all time," thought Reinhold. "It is too bad; but you cannot yield, bound hand and foot, unconditionally, to the old tyrant! If you cannot possibly touch chords which awaken a friendly response in his hard soul, let the ladies try to do so--and indeed that is their office." Aunt Rikchen had evidently read the thought from his face. She answered his silent appeal with one of her sharp, swift, furtive glances, and with light shrugs of her shoulders, as if to say--"He's always so! It can't be helped." Ferdinande seemed not to notice the interruption. She continued to gaze straight ahead, as she had done during the entire meal, with a strange, distracted, gloomy expression, and did not now stir as her aunt, bending toward her, said a few words in a low tone. Uncle Ernst, who was just about to fill his empty glass again, set down the bottle he had raised. "I have asked you a thousand times, Rike, to stop that abominable whispering. What is the matter now?" A swift flush of anger passed over Aunt Rikchen's wrinkled old-maidish face, as the distasteful name "Rike" fell upon her ear; but she answered in a tone of resigned indifference, in which she was accustomed to reply to the reprimand of her brother, "Nothing at all! I only asked Ferdinande if Justus was not coming this evening." "Who is Justus?" asked Reinhold, glad that some other subject had been broached. "Rike is fond of speaking of people in the most familiar way," said Uncle Ernst. "When they half belong to the family, why not?" retorted Aunt Rikchen, who seemed determined not to be intimidated this time. "Justus, or, as Uncle Ernst will have it, Mr. Anders, is a young sculptor----" "Of thirty and more years," said Uncle Ernst. "Of thirty and more years, then," continued Aunt Rikchen; "more exactly, thirty-three. He has been living, who knows how long, with us----" "Don't you know, Ferdinande?" asked Uncle Ernst. "Ferdinande is his pupil, you know," continued Aunt Rikchen. "Oh!" said Reinhold; "my compliments." "It isn't worth mentioning," said Ferdinande. "His best pupil!" exclaimed Aunt Rikchen; "he told me so himself yesterday, and that your 'Shepherd Boy' pleased the Commission very much. Ferdinande has a 'Shepherd Boy' at the exposition, you know, suggested by Schiller's poem----" "Uhland's poem, Aunt!" "I beg pardon--I haven't had the good fortune of an academic education, as others have!--I don't know now what I was about to say----" "I guess it won't make much difference," growled Uncle Ernst. "You were speaking of Ferdinande's 'Shepherd Boy,' Aunt," said Reinhold, coming to her aid. Aunt Rikchen cast a grateful glance at him, but, before she could answer, the bell rang in the hall and a clear voice asked, "Are the family still at the table?" "It's Justus!" cried Aunt Rikchen. "I thought it was you! Have you had supper?" * * * * *