Two tears of unutterable remorse ran down her cheeks. She had a deal further to say about the superlative virtues of her two daughters, her husband's lofty character, and her own abject inferiority, and after several more doses of the medicine prescribed by the eminent physician she sobbed and moaned herself to sleep. The next morning Frau Asmussen began the day's work by scolding Lilly for sweeping out the library with the broom standing behind the door. "It's kept there for one purpose only," she said, "and that is to chastise those two hussies when they appear at my door; and if you ever dare to touch it again you will be the first to feel what it's like." After this, Lilly began to regard her future through less rose-coloured glasses. A worse blow was to come. Frau Asmussen, who seemed deeply concerned about Lilly's spiritual welfare and the purity of her mind, strictly forbade her to read any of the books in her library. "After what I have experienced with my daughters," she said, "I know the evil results of novel-reading, and I'll take care that you don't go the same way." While the work of rearranging the catalogue and the ledgers lasted, the temptation to disobey orders did not occur frequently. But when autumn set in, and, in spite of the increase of subscribers, her time became less occupied and the hanging lamp was lighted early over the library table, when Frau Asmussen yielded sooner to the effects of the medicine prescribed by the eminent physician, and fell into a stupor, Lilly was driven by curiosity and boredom to do what she had been forbidden. She was first put up to it by a girl who came to change the first volume of a novel for the second. The second volume was out, and the girl positively wept for disappointment. She declared that she couldn't wait to know how the story ended. It would kill her. Lilly good-naturedly advised her to go to one of the other circulating libraries, which were said to be larger and superior, and she went so far as to return the girl her three marks deposit. The novel devourer thanked Lilly and departed with renewed hopes. Lilly scanned the outside of the dirty, torn volume she had left on the counter, then cautiously peeped inside. "Debit and Credit," by Gustav Freytag, was on the title-page. She had heard them raving about this book when she was in the first class at school, but there was no time for novel-reading in the life of a sweated machinist's daughter. She glanced timidly at the first page, then went to the glass door and listened for a few minutes to the peaceful snores that came from the back parlour. Soon afterwards she was launched with full-spread sails on the wide ocean of romance. At four in the morning, when she had finished the first volume, she was in desperation at the thought that she could not go on with the story, and wondered who had the missing volume, and how she was to get hold of it. Then she fell asleep.