The words had leaped from my lips as if some one else had lured them from my inmost soul, and I was startled at my boldness as I heard the sound of my own voice. I dared not look at her. I felt, or thought I felt, that she was forcing herself to keep calm and not rebuke my presumption. After a long pause, she replied, in a voice whose tones were sorrowful rather than indignant: "Why have you said this, Johannes? You ought to know me and be aware that I have done with life. Do not suppose that the opinion of the world would awe me, if I felt that I was still young enough to be happy and make others happy. But I was probably never created to devote myself with my whole heart to a single individual, as a true wife ought. Even my unfortunate first love was but a delusion of my imagination. I have every talent for friendship or for being a Sister of Charity, and my most passionate feeling has ever been a fervent sympathy with _pauvre humanite_, as Mademoiselle Suzon said. But you would not wish to be married from compassion. "No," she continued, as I was about to protest, "it would be a cruel pity. In a few years I should easily pass for your mother, and you would cut a ridiculous figure in attending me through the streets. You are still a young man and a very foolish one, as you have just proved. Your heart must still possess a fountain of youth, though you are no mere lad. Why don't you do me the favor to marry my Agnes, who is nine and twenty, an epitome of every feminine virtue, and, moreover, in love with you?" This Agnes was her favorite pupil, the daughter of the district physician, and, as I lived opposite to her house, our names had already been associated by the gossips. It was by no means humiliating to be suspected of cherishing a special liking for this exemplary and by no means ugly girl. But, Good Heavens, I! I could only shake my head and answer: "Why do I not love your Agnes? Because I don't want to marry a bundle of virtues, but one human being, and in fact only that one who in my eyes will always be young, and whom I desire to call mine in order to please no mortal save myself. However, as you have so little love for me that you would willingly serve as a match-maker in my behalf, it was of course folly to ask if you would become Frau Johannes Weissbrod, and I therefore most humbly beg your pardon." I rose with an uncontrollable sense of grief, and, scarcely bowing to her, stalked away like a thoroughly rude, defiant man. The next day, it is true, I returned humbly, and remorsefully besought her to forgive my spiteful escapade. She was quite right; I was nothing but a crack-brained young man who grasped at the stars, and in doing so fell on the ground. Frau Luise gazed silently into vacancy, and then said: "The most difficult task and the one we learn latest is to cut our garments according to the cloth, though we feel it will grow with us. Let us say no more about it."