“She—she was probably very beautiful,” said Hamilton, glancing unconsciously towards their companion. “No,” replied Mr. Rosenberg, thoughtfully. “She was interesting looking, but no longer young when we married. She was clever and warm-hearted—like Hildegarde here—and could love with a warmth perfectly irresistible to a man who had wandered for years, and was without a friend or near relation in the world. She gave me an object in life; but her affection, though of incalculable benefit to me, subjected her to trials and privations which only ended with her life. I was not worthy of such love!” “Oh, papa! I am sure you were,” cried Hildegarde, eagerly. “And what are trials and privations when shared with those we love! It must be a compensation for everything when one is really loved! I should like someone to love me—not in a commonplace, rational, every-day sort of way—but permanently—desperately——” “My dear girl, you don’t know what you are saying! What will Mr. Hamilton think of you!” “He will think I am talking nonsense,” replied Hildegarde, laughing, “or, perhaps he will not understand me. Mr. Hamilton is much too rational to love unwisely—and as to passion of desperation, I do not think it possible for him to form a tolerably correct idea of the meaning of the words!” “Hello!” shouted Major Stultz, “where are you three going? We are all waiting for you, and the roast goose is nearly ready.” They turned back and Hildegarde said in a low voice to Hamilton, as they passed through the yard of the brewery, “I am glad that there are not many people here, for, though I like a garden party exceedingly, I think supping in a brewery must be vulgar. I wonder you came with us!” “I like to see everything,” replied Hamilton, “and besides a man may go anywhere and everywhere.” “Ah, how I should like to be a man!” she said sighing. “You are too young for such a wish,” said Hamilton; “rather like the Prince de Linge, desire to be a woman until you are thirty, a soldier until you are fifty, and to spend the rest of your life as a monk.” “I think,” said Madame Rosenberg, bustling past them, “I think that as the evening air is cool, we had better take possession of the little room at the end of the garden; there is a window in it which looks out on the road, and we can see everybody who goes by. Do you remember, Franz, we supped there with my father on pork-chops and _sauer-kraut_ the evening before we were married?” Mr. Rosenberg’s previous conversation seemed to have made him somewhat oblivious—he confessed having forgotten the pork-chops, but said that he had probably thought more of her than of them, at such a time. “I don’t know that,” said his wife, “for you scarcely spoke a word, and eat enormously. Now that I think of it, I dare say that was the reason you looked so miserably ill the next day.”