None, I say, save what’s black—all black and stiff, like witches; Not fair, and dry, and golden, like this of thine. The voices ceased, and at this point the applause burst out in a storm. Avice passed her hand over her eyes, starting violently at being thus dragged back to the every-day world. So life-like had been the scene, one seemed to be transported to those strange, far-back primitive days—the days before that dim and distant _Hermannsschlacht_, about which historiographers are even yet not agreed. But far more wonderful to Avice was the way in which her friend had, as it were, transformed herself from the collected, well-bred, sophisticated young lady of to-day, into an ancient Teuton chieftainess, a primal Germanic mother, in whose beautiful face there were not wanting passion and fierceness—whoso reads the rest of the play may learn the pitiless brutal vengeance which Thusnelda wreaked upon Ventidius—not wanting her elements of ‘the tiger and the ape.’ And yet how grand she was—how majestic! And how tameless looked this Teuton princess! It was not fear that troubled her—she felt no fear—but anger, and boundless haughty astonishment. The Roman women, forsooth! What was she to them, or they to her? She felt as if she could crush a dozen of them with one blow of her ample hand. This picture was shown twice. Wilhelmi rubbed his hands in rapture. ‘Splendid!’ he cried, ‘worth coming miles to see. Didn’t she do it grandly?—didn’t she look every inch the Teuton queen?’ ‘Max might have given me one look!’ said Luise; ‘he _knew_ I was in the very front row. I shall scold him about it.’ ‘Foolish baby! I forbid thee to do anything of the kind. Where would the picture have been if he had been ludicrously rolling his eyes about in search of thee? And why should he look for thee? Was not Thusnelda his lawful consort?’ said her father, delighted to torment her if possible. Luise was about to make some malicious retort, when an official came and whispered something to Wilhelmi, who, with an exclamation of pleased surprise—a ‘_Nun, das freut mich!_’—rose, and made his way towards the bottom of the crowded room. The third picture was soon put on the stage. It was a ‘Village Funeral,’ and was excellently well done, but it lacked the poetry and excitement of the last scene. The curtain went down, and still the Professor did not return. Sara remained behind the scenes; she took a part in the next picture—the part of a lady of high degree, on whose ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ her lover of low degree waits anxiously. There was a long interval, full of noise and talking and laughing. When the curtain rose again, Wilhelmi had still not returned; and Luise, who was never happy without him at such a scene, muttered discontentedly, ‘_Wo bleibt denn der Papa?_’ This picture—this _Ja, oder Nein_—had an interest, apart from its style and subject, in the fact that it was the last one finished by the artist who had died.