ight. I have betrothed myself to Annele in the
presence of her mother, and I will keep my word. God grant I may
receive her from her father! I tell you, for the last time, I did not
ask your advice. I am quite able to act for myself."

"I shall rejoice with all my heart if I have been mistaken. But no;
Lenz, for Heaven's sake, be persuaded! There is still time. You cannot
say I have ever dissuaded you from marrying."

"No."

"You were born to be a husband. I was a fool not to urge you more
strongly to marry one of the doctor's daughters."

"Do you think I would have gone to them, and said, 'My guardian,
Pilgrim, sends his compliments, and says I am to marry one of
you,--Amanda, if I can'? No: they are too fine ladies for me."

"They are, indeed, fine ladies, while Annele only acts the fine lady.
Because the doctor's daughters are not on familiar terms with all the
world, you thought it would be difficult to become intimate with them.
It was easier with Annele. Oh, I see it all. Annele talked with you of
your grief, as she knows how to talk of every thing, and that opened
your heart. Annele has in every gown a pocketful of small coin. Her
heart is such a pocket, from which she brings out change for every
guest."

"Pilgrim, you are doing a wrong, a great wrong!" cried Lenz, his lips
trembling with sorrow and anger. To convince his friend how sincere and
true-hearted Annele was, he told him her words after the death of his
mother and after the departure of his great work. Every one had been to
him a revelation.

"My pennies! my coppers!" cried Pilgrim. "My poor coppers! She robbed a
beggar-man to get her pennies! O fool, cursed fool that I was! All she
said, every word, she stole from me. She is like a corkscrew for
getting things out of one. I was fool enough to say those very words to
her. It serves me right. Yet how could I think she would trap you with
them? O my poor pennies!" The two friends sat long in silence. Pilgrim
bit his lips till they bled. Lenz shook his head, doubtingly. "Do you
know Annele's chief motive for taking you?" resumed Pilgrim at length.
"It was not your tall figure, not your good heart, not even your money.
Those were minor considerations. Her chief delight is that the doctor's
daughter did not get you. He is not yours, but mine. You cannot
understand a character like Annele's, to whom no pleasure, no happiness
is complete that does not wound another; whose greatest triumph is to
imagin