‘And our friendship?’ he asked. ‘Do you still wish for my friendship, Herr Falkenberg?’ ‘Now, more than ever, your friendship appears precious and desirable to me.’ ‘It is yours, so long as you care to keep it,’ she answered. ‘At least, do not desert me till I have found the strait and narrow path again.’ ‘That is not hard,’ he answered. ‘Go to Nature, and paint the humblest plant you can find—the most rugged visage you may meet in the street, but paint it—you know how, as well as I do. Do not smear into it your own vague fancies. Study it, to find what God has hidden behind its exterior covering. Think of it and its meaning; not of yourself, and what you would like it to be. Reverence, reverence, and for ever reverence, as that same great countryman of yours has said; and I promise you that if it be but a tuft of dandelions, or the head of the most weather-beaten _Mütterchen_ on the marketplace, it shall be more worth hanging up and looking at than a thousand of those things.’ ‘Your sayings are hard, but true,’ she answered, with a return of life in her cheek and eye; ‘and I thank you for your lesson, though it has been a stern one. Only tell me—you don’t despair of me?’ ‘I never felt such confidence in you as I do now,’ he replied, with a smile, and looking at her as if he wished she would return it. But Sara could not do that yet. She sat still, resting her cheek on her hand, and he paced about the studio talking to her, his heart beating fast too, thinking. ‘Fine-tempered—true and pure gold. Does the man know what sort of a woman he has won? Judging by my own experience of such affairs—not.’ When Avice came in from her walk, she found Sara and Herr Falkenberg in the parlour, looking over engravings. Then Ellen hastened to bring the coffee, and Rudolf disburthened his mind of an invitation committed to his charge by Fräulein Wilhelmi, bidding Sara to a musical party on the following evening. She promised to go; and he, departing, held her hand somewhat long as he asked: ‘You have understood, I hope?’ ‘Perfectly, and am grateful.’ ‘Then, till to-morrow evening,’ he replied, bowing, and taking his departure. [Illustration] CHAPTER V. THE LION AND THE MOUSE.