"But it was only seeming. He is afraid of compromising his dignity if he talks as he really feels. I have found that all people who have had a sorrowful youth are so. Even the heart, so to speak, needs to have had its dancing lessons, and when it has had none, when it has always been compelled to beat under the pressure of straitened, gloomy surroundings, as in my poor Emil's case, people never overcome it all their lives. But what I was going to say is, that this time there is a special reason for it. My good Emil certainly never told even me--dear, kind man, as if I would have taken it amiss--that thirty or thirty-five years ago he was once very deeply in love with Gotthold's mother, when they lived in the same house in Stettin--it is a long and very romantic story." "Oh! oh!" said Alma, "who would ever have given your husband credit for that?" "Why," cried Ottilie, "you are entirely mistaken in Emil; his nature has a freshness, a power, a youthful fire--" "How happy you are!" said Alma with a faint sigh. "I hope you are no less so; but I wanted to explain why Emil always becomes so quiet when the conversation turns upon Gotthold. That is the reason of it, and then he has taken it into his head that this visit to the Brandows must turn out unlucky for him--Gotthold. You know Gotthold used to be in love with Cecilia; nay, between ourselves, I am sure he loves her still. But now, tell me yourself: can you see any great misfortune in that?" "Not at all; I only think it rather improbable; you know I have never been able to share your enthusiasm about Cecilia, and don't see why all the men are to be in love with her. Her husband evidently isn't; at least I know a lady to whom he devotes himself whenever he meets her, in a way that proves his heart is not very strongly engaged in any other quarter."