The blithe lieutenant, remembering the compact, shot up out of his chair. His demeanour stiffened into business-like coolness. "If you please," he twanged, "will you kindly let me have the latest work by--by--" Evidently no German author occurred to him. After racking his brain the delivering name came, "by Gerstäcker." Lilly brought him the "latest work," which bore the date 1849. He deposited the requisite three marks, and took leave with too sweeping a bow, while the little imps frolicked between his silver-white lids. Soon after the sisters came home, cast a suspicious look at Lilly's flaming cheeks, and passed by without greeting her. The next day went after the fashion of every other, but something troubled Lilly, something like Christmas expectations, a premonitory restlessness, which pressed on to a new life. And behold! At the same time as the day before the door opened, and in stepped two elegant young men, who emitted a strident "good evening." Their manner was both a bit assured and a bit abashed as they asked for "an interesting book," while measuring Lilly with the stare of a connoisseur. She felt her limbs grow heavy and rigid, as always when conscious of being observed and admired. But she maintained her dignity, and when the young gentlemen after selecting their trash (which they scarcely glanced at) wanted to start up a bantering conversation, she tossed her head and withdrew behind the bookcase L to N, which sheltered her when she sat at the window-sill making her entries and calculations. The gentlemen took whispered counsel with each other, said a low "good-by," and beat a retreat. So her jolly friend had betrayed her after all! From now on Mrs. Asmussen's poor little hole of a library swarmed with slim young men of fashion, who were driven by an insatiable desire for reading to exchange one musty old volume for another. Only a few dared come in uniform, but they did not withhold their names, and the last page of the customers' book looked as if extracted from an Almanac de Gotha. Some wrapped themselves in a coat of business-like correctness, others came with careless assurance of victory. One man began to make love on the spot, and another even had the audacity to bandy gross language over the counter. The naïvest one condescendingly inquired when within the next few days he might expect a visit from her. Lilly soon came to see that these attentions neither honoured nor gave hurt. She chatted freely with those who were courteous, refrained from replying to those who were impertinent, and the instant a conversation threatened to become lengthy she disappeared behind case L to N. Within a few days the sisters had discovered the aristocratic visitors.