"Ah, I am afraid in there," said she to Albano; "they are all too clever, and I am now so stupid!" He found beside the domestic trio the Princess also, and the little Helena from Lilar, that lovely medallion of a fine day to his stirred heart. Indescribably was he smitten with Liana's womanly advances to Rabette, as if he shared her with her. With courtesy and tenderness, a mildness also, which was without falsehood or pride, came to the help of the embarrassed playmate, on whose face the inborn gayety and eloquence of nature now singularly contrasted with her artificial dumb gravity. Charles, with his ready familiarity, was more in a condition to entangle than to extricate her; only Liana gave to her soul and tongue, if only by the embroidery-frame, a free field; Rabette could write with the embroidering needle, no illuminated and initial letters, indeed, but still a good running-hand. She gave--turning her face toward her brother's, in order to pluck courage therefrom--a clear report of the dangerous road and upsets, laughing all the while, after the manner of the people when they are telling their mishaps. Her brother was to her, at the company's expense, both company and world; upon him alone streamed forth her warmth and speech. She said she could from her chamber see him "play on the harpsichord." Liana immediately led both thither. How richly and sublimely, beyond Rabette's demands upon city-life, was the maidenly _hospitium_ set out, from the tulip (not a blooming one, but a work-basket of Liana's,--although every tulip is such a basket for the finger of spring) even to the piano-forte, of which she, of course, for the present can use no more than seven treble-keys for half a waltz? Five moderate trunks of clothes--for therewith she thought to come out, and show the city that the country too could wear clothes--represented to him in their well-known flower-pieces and tin bands the old impressions (_incunabula_) of his earliest days of life; and to-day every trace of the old season of love refreshed him. She made him look for his windows, from one of which the Librarian was fixing a hard gaze on a paving-stone in the street to see how often he could hit it by spitting.