"Oh, _mon Dieu!_" exclaimed the little Lacerta, slipping, full of terror, out of the arms of her knight. "Be quiet!" replied the knight. "They must learn it anyhow," said he, and seized the little lady by the hand, drew back the curtain, stepped, like the page in Schiller's Diver, "bold and brave" before his friends, and spoke: "My friends, I have the inexpressible pleasure of presenting to you my dear betrothed, Miss Marguerite Martin!" As Bemperlein had initiated Sophie, under the seal of secrecy, into his secret, and as the latter had communicated it under the same seal to Franz, and to her father, nobody could exactly be said to be much surprised, especially after the scene with Amor and the kiss in the bay-window. For all that the congratulations were none the less hearty. The men shook hands cordially, Sophie kissed Marguerite with more feeling than she usually showed, and it was some time before the stirred-up waves of deep emotion subsided again and left the surface once more calm and clear. "We must authenticate such an event by a corresponding solemnity," said the privy councillor, who rang the bell, and ordered the servant who came in to bring up the last of twelve bottles of "Johannisberg Cabinet," which a sovereign once had presented to him after having been saved by the skill of the physician. And when the noble wine was sparkling in the glasses, he said: "My dear ones! In the hour of joy we can easily speak of past sorrow, and, therefore, I propose to place the merry, pretty picture before us in a dark frame, which will make its bright colors appear all the more beautiful. While I was lying these last days helpless on my sickbed--I, whose office and duty it is to help wherever I can help--a word has constantly come back to me, a plaintive, tearful word, which once the poor Roman plebeians, overwhelmed with hard service, cried out before the patricians: '_Sine missione nascimur!_'--that means, you girls, 'We are born to have no leave of absence!' You do not care whether our strength is used up in the endless wars which you carry on in the name of our country, but for your own good profit and advantage only; or whether our lands lie fallow and our wives and children are dying in misery. To arms! to arms! you call from year's end to year's end; and we have to serve from year's end to year's end: '_sine missione nascimur!_'" The privy councillor drank from his glass and continued, with deeply-moved voice: