"As I perceive that Christina will speedily vanish from my story, I had better give a few indications of what she is like before she makes her exit. She is of medium height, with a finely-developed figure; about two or three and twenty, with a round face, a short nose, slightly turned up, and kindly light-blue eyes, which say, with a charming smile, to every man she meets, 'I'm going to get married very soon (don't much mind to whom). She has a beautiful, fair complexion; hair not over red; most kissable lips, and a mouth rather too large, which she has an odd way of drawing on one side, though two rows of pearls are thereby rendered visible. If the next house were on fire, and the flames were catching the room, she would just, quickly, feed her canary and put away the clothes from the wash, and then go and tell her father that the house was on fire. No almond-tart ever came to grief in her hands, and her butter-sauce is always of exactly the right thickness, because she always stirs it from left to right, never the other way. As Elias Roos has just poured out the last of the bottle into old Franz's glass, I further remark, hastily, that it is because he's going to marry her that she's so fond of Traugott; for what in the world would become of her if she weren't to get married? After dinner Roos proposed to the strangers a walk round the walls. How gladly would Traugott have made his escape and been by himself! Never had he known anything like the thoughts, feelings, and sensations which he had experienced to-day. Escape he could not, however, for just as he was slipping out at the door, without even kissing Christina's hand, Herr Elias seized him by the coat-tails, crying, 'Come, partner; you're not going to give us the slip, are you, son-in-law?' So he had to stay.