ms. In his opinion
her face was more than pretty; her eager, passionate eyes, and her
mouth with the full, rather pouting lips, on which one longed to plant
a big kiss, seemed to him quite beautiful. She wore her dark hair,
which was as coarse as a horse's tail, dressed in a new-fashioned way
which gave her a certain "individuality"; and, above all, she had some
scent about her of a kind that was only used by the most distinguished
ladies.

Heppner was annoyed that she noticed him so little. She was quite taken
up with her betrothed, who was telling her of the progress made in the
preparation of the house, and she only gave Heppner a glance at rare
intervals.

At first she did not talk much; but when, in order to say something, he
asked her where her home was, she immediately began to relate her whole
history.

She came from Prague, and was the daughter of a shoe-maker--or, rather,
of a boot and shoe manufacturer--and, moreover, not of an ordinary boot
and shoe manufacturer, but of a Court boot and shoe manufacturer by
Royal and Imperial appointment, who did not work for just any one, but
only for the Archdukes and for the high Bohemian nobility. And she,
Albina, had always to write down the figures when her father was taking
measures, and so it had come about that a Count Colloredo had fallen in
love with her. He had wished to educate and marry her; but she had at
last refused because the noble relations of her beloved had threatened
to disinherit him if he married the "shoemaker's daughter." She could
never have endured causing him to discard his beautiful Thurn and Taxis
dragoon's uniform.

Now came a pause in Albina's narrative, which however did not last
long. Next, she had fled from her father's house. Why? She kept that a
secret. And finally, after many vicissitudes she had found a refuge
here, where she was safe from her father. For he had wished later to
marry her to a master chimney-sweep, and although the latter was a
millionaire she would have none of him.

In reality she was the child of a miserably poor cobbler; and after a
stormy youth she had brought her somewhat damaged little ship of life
to anchor in the small garrison town at the bar of Grundmann's
alehouse.

Heimert waited impatiently for the conclusion of her romance, which he
had heard many times before. But if Albina had a chance of telling the
story of her life, she became like a freshly wound-up clock, which
ticks on inexorably until i