Hildegarde seemed struck by this remark, and walked on in silence. Zedwitz excused himself for having spoken against his friend on the plea of jealousy, and then urged his own cause with great fervour. While thus speaking, they had taken a wrong turn, and were loudly recalled by Madame Rosenberg, “who wondered what on earth they could have been thinking about!” Zedwitz had no opportunity of renewing the conversation, but he was apparently satisfied on finding that she was not displeased. When Hamilton returned home that evening, Hildegarde was at the Hoffmanns’: she had not visited them for a long time, and on her return, he inquired with extreme affability after each member of the family, cousin Oscar included. She seated herself as far distant from him as possible, and while answering his questions seemed to think more of a coloured wool, which she was arranging in a basket, than of what she was saying. “Did your cousin read for you this evening?” asked Hamilton, moving his chair towards her. “No, he tried a quantity of new music which Marie had just received. Crescenz, do tell me how you distinguish your greens at night? They all appear blue to me!” “The names and numbers are pinned on each colour,” replied Crescenz, pushing forward her neatly arranged basket for inspection. Major Stultz said something about young women of orderly habits making good wives, which she did not seem to hear, but when Hamilton in returning the basket observed, that the colours were so judiciously arranged, that they reminded him of a rainbow, a smile of childish delight brightened her youthful features and made her look so pretty, that he playfully held back the basket, and began a series of questions on the different colours, exhibiting an excess of ignorance on the subject which seemed to amuse _her_ infinitely more than Major Stultz, who first drummed on the table, then pushed back his chair, and finally told her somewhat testily, that “she was preventing Mr. Hamilton from reading his newspaper.” Hamilton understood the hint, and resigned the basket with a slight laugh; Crescenz blushed, and, with evident displeasure, followed Major Stultz to another table, where he proposed reading her the letters which he had that day received from Nuremberg. Hamilton drew his chair close to Hildegarde’s, while he observed, “I am very glad that you have no one who has a right to forbid your speaking to me.” Hildegarde bent over her work for a minute, and then looking up asked abruptly, “What sort of a person is your eldest brother?” “The best-natured fellow in the world, good-looking, and amusing. You would be sure to like him, if you could pardon his speaking the most execrable French imaginable.” “Is he amiable?” “Amiable? oh, very amiable!” “And not a _vaurien_?” “_Tant soit peu_,” said Hamilton, laughing, “but not half so bad as your cousin Raimund.” “Is he much older than you?”