to send to find your own
people?"

She shook her head energetically: "No, no!" and whispered wearily: "But
if you would only stay just a little while, Herr Heimert!"

The sergeant nodded, and remained sitting silently beside her.

It was some time before Julie Heppner had the strength to explain to
him what had happened to her. While so doing she looked at him more
attentively, and was almost frightened by his ugliness. The coarse face
with the outstanding ears was made half grotesque, half repellent, by
an enormous nose, which was always red. What did it matter that two
beautiful, kindly child-like eyes shone from this countenance? Would
any one trouble to look for them in the midst of such hideousness?

The invalid remembered she had heard that Heimert was going to be
married. In the light of her own unhappiness she thought to herself
that this marriage could only turn out well if the man had chosen a
woman as ugly as himself, so that in their common misfortune the pair
could comfort each other.

As she gradually became able to talk to him she inquired about his
bride, and the enamoured swain raved to her unceasingly of Albina's
beauty and charm.

Heimert now appeared to her as a fellow-sufferer; only she was about to
lay down the heavy burden, and he was but just going to take the load
upon his back.

The two talked together as if they had known each other for years; they
were nearly always of the same opinion. Finally, the invalid invited
the deputy sergeant-major to come over often when she was alone; she
would always give him a sign, and he could bring his carpenter's bench
with him, the hammering would not disturb her in the least.

After this, Heimert always appeared directly Julie Heppner called him.
He gained distraction from his jealous fits in this way, and he thought
the sergeant-major's wife a really good woman, who had been unfortunate
enough to marry the wrong man, when with another she would perhaps have
been happy. The brutality with which Heppner treated the dying woman
was revolting to him, and his sympathy with the injured wife gradually
inspired him with a positive hatred for the sergeant-major.

The sergeant-major laughed at Heimert. "The Prince with the Nose" he
called him, and sneered at his wife about this "lover."

"You two would have suited each other well!" he jeered. "You would have
nothing to reproach each other with in the way of beauty!"

One day in passing he looked into t