betrothal ceremony appeared upset and saddened by her mother's absence. The good wishes of her women friends offered little compensation for it, they were mostly but the friends of yesterday. Kanzleirath's Minna spoke hers really most honestly; she liked Blanden, too, but she was too phlegmatic to be jealous, and too good natured not to give her best wishes to every bride upon her path through life. The room had filled, the village inhabitants pressed around the open doors, some of the village beauties were invited to the dance beneath the pear tree. The orchestra commenced the overture to _Der Freischütz_. While one portion of the householders and fishermen of the place listened attentively to the music, the others were drawn away by an unhoped for distraction, because in the garden outside, Doctor Kuhl amused himself in making Nero and the Forester's bull-dog compete in jumping over tables and benches, while he declined the delights of the music in a defiant manner. Only when the spirit-like tremolo of the "Waldschlucht" had died away and a voice began to sing the Erl-king to a pianoforte accompaniment, did Kuhl push a table outside against the window, spring on to it with both dogs, and between the poodle and bull-dog listened devoutly to his Cäcilie's song, for it was she who, accompanied by Wegen, executed Schubert's entrancing melody with more passion than he had given her credit for. When the orchestra then played Haydn's Symphony in C sharp, Kuhl sprang down again from his improvised opera-box, and indulged in gymnastic amusements such as are seen at fairs and annual markets, gradually drawing the interest of the public standing outside completely away from the dream world of music. Even the choruses of Mendelssohn's songs, "Come fly with me and be my wife," and "There fell a frost at midnight's hour," could only rouse the athletic doctor to momentary attention. "That Müller von Stallupönen," he muttered to himself, "has already let a frost at midnight fall upon the flowers of the betrothal-day; what icy cold will reign later on at that hour!" Eva sat, stirred with silent emotion, on the decorated chair. So often as the door was opened, when a late comer arrived, she turned her glance in that direction, and sprang up from her seat several times, as if she expected to greet her mother in each lady who entered. Blanden even perceived her agitation; he enquired its cause, but she did not venture to confess to him that even on this day she still yearned for another person, for her mother. Had he not listened very indifferently to a conversation in which she mentioned her mother, and, as it appeared, had intentionally broken it off; yes, a friend even told her she had heard him say to Doctor Kuhl, when passing by, he had quite enough with one mother-in-law.