"Then let us lose no more time," said Bemperlein, offering Sophie his arm, and leading her the familiar way into the adjoining room, where supper was regularly laid out. Miss Sophie and Mr. Bemperlein were great friends. The excellent man had at every epoch of his life found somebody to whom he could offer his devotion and his love. When he had come over to settle in Grunwald, he had felt for a few days unspeakably lonely and wretched. Unable to live in solitude, and full of childlike trust, he had no sooner been introduced into the house of Privy Councillor Roban than he had poured out his complaints into the willing ear of Miss Sophie; whose large blue eyes encouraged him wonderfully. Sophie had not only listened to the little, lively man, who opened his whole heart to her with Homeric _naïveté_, as if he could not help doing so; but after following him with great attention to his last words; "that is all over now! over, and forever!" she had given him her hand with most cordial kindness, saying: "You must come and see us very often, Mr. Bemperlein. Papa is very fond of you and so am I. We'll try if we cannot make some amends to you for the loss of Berkow." It was a strange friendship that bound the two to each other. Sophie, although twelve years younger than Bemperlein, was the admonishing, reproving, directing Mentor, and he the obedient, attentive, and docile Telemachus. She had aided him in arranging the modest lodgings which he had rented at some little distance from the privy councillor's house, and she made with him, and sometimes without him, the necessary purchases. Her attention went even beyond that. She trained him, after a fashion, for his entrance into society, for there was much to be done. She made him aware that it was not exactly the thing to hold gentlemen with whom he conversed continually by a coat-button, or to turn his back persistently upon ladies by whose side he had found his seat at table, however tedious they might appear in his eyes. "You must not do this, Bemperlein! You must stop doing that, Bemperlein!" the young lady continually said to him, and the good-natured man obeyed her implicitly, and was but too happy and proud if she said another time, "Bemperlein, that was well done! You played quite the cavalier to-night, Bemperlein!"