"You always hit the nail on the head! Certainly, who was she? The only child of her parents; her father was Reginald Lenz, a rich merchant in Stettin--I have forgotten her mother's name; but she must have been a dear, sweet creature, and loved her husband passionately, too passionately perhaps. He was probably a very attractive man--he always went by the name of 'handsome Lenz,' and such people are spoiled: the merry bachelor life is continued after marriage; a few unlucky speculations may have happened also; in a word, Herr Lenz failed at the end of a few years, or stood on the verge of bankruptcy, and the books did not balance as they ought; he would not survive the disgrace, and--it is terrible to think of--he took a cheerful farewell of his young wife to go out hunting, and clear his head after reckoning so many figures, as he said, and in the evening they brought him home with his brains dashed out. Was it not terrible?" "Go on," said Alma. "Ah! the rest is almost as bad. The young wife, who had had no suspicion of her husband's situation--or she would not have let him leave her--saw the body without the slightest preparation. An hour after--the unhappy woman was daily expecting the birth of another child--she was attacked by a violent fever, and in a few days was a corpse." "How imprudent," said Alma. "The little five-year-old Marie--" "An ugly name," observed Alma. "I don't think so; at any rate its bearer was anything but ugly, Emil says; and to speak frankly, I am sure that in this respect he does not exaggerate, and the little lady, who naturally in the course of years grew up to maturity, really possessed all the admirable qualities which turned the head of the poor young fellow, who was then only twenty. And he was not alone; all the other young men employed in the business fared just the same. I forgot to say, or was just going to tell you, that the poor little orphan had been received in her uncle's house, the brother of her unhappy father, but a man who was exactly his opposite in every respect; plain, stern, pedantic, an excellent business-man of the old school, as Emil says, who had entered his counting-room and at that time risen to be head clerk. His wife was wonderfully well suited to him, that is, she was not one whit less plain, or less strict and pedantic, so the poor little girl could not have found the house exactly a bed of roses." "In spite of all her admirers?" "In spite of all her admirers. She inherited it from her father, who always aimed too high." "Perhaps she did not know what she wanted."