"Come," cried the Baron, "you must not examine my virtue through the microscope, else we shall never have done with each other; for with me every thing tends rather to the gross; my merits are as little refined as my vices. But see, how among all my guests Mr. von Böhmer is standing so solitary by the stove, and musing in the midst of the music! Lieutenant, pray come and take a dance with one of these ladies." "I never dance," said the young officer, coming up to them: "nor should I have come, had I not been invited by Miss Erhard; and it could never have occurred to me, that she had in view a dinning ball." "Is it not said, that to the pure all things are pure?" asked the lady with great unction. Alfred, who had come up, answered; "Certainly, that is the right view of the matter, and it would be droll enough, if M. von Wilden were to be converted by the lady, and she by our lively Baron. But you Ferdinand (addressing himself to the officer,) wear not a single holiday look on your dusky countenance." "I am going away," he answered, "to the Baroness, will you accompany me?" "No, my friend," answered the other, "nor do I purpose ever troubling that circle again; for that ostentatious hypocrisy has of late become sufficiently clear to me. How thankful am I to the worthy man, who shook the bandage from my eyes!" "You mean Count Brandenstein?" said his friend: "You take then the part of the wicked against the pious, of sin against virtue?" "Let us drop this language now," replied Alfred, "I feel myself, since I became acquainted with that person, more my own man." "Do you know then," interrupted the Baron, "any thing of the story? They say the savage, the American, is come, a spotted, copper-coloured man, with hair like scales or prickles. People say too, this wild animal would marry that froward girl Dorothea. "Nothing is known for certain," said Alfred. "The American will at all events be a man like all others, and consequently she will be more happy with him, than with Baron Wallen." "Whom you are incapable of appreciating," cried the officer, as with a slight bow he withdrew. "You think then," continued the Baron, "a well-bred girl might live happily with such a sea-monster? But indeed in life a great many sorts of happiness must be consumed, that every one may get something to suit him; and they tell me, the pretty Dorothea is so ungodly, that perhaps the most ungodly cannibal is not too bad for her." "You are misinformed," answered Alfred, and was on the point of beginning a story, when the good-natured Sophia came tripping up, to remind him that he had engaged her for the next quadrille. The Baron in the mean while drank, and promised Miss Erhard to dance the next Polish Waltz, or at all events the merry "Turn Out" with her. * * * * *