rd, as he laid
his hand on his brother's shoulder, "I don't say that young people will
do the world a great deal of good by making a noise, but I am quite
certain that none of us have done it much good by holding our tongue."

"What do you mean? Nonsense, Richard!" said the Consul, contemptuously,
as he turned back into his room.

They both got into bed and put out their lights.

"Good night, Christian Frederick."

"Good night," answered the Consul, rather drily; but just as Uncle
Richard was on the point of falling asleep, he heard his brother say--

"Dick, Dick! are you asleep?"

"No, not quite," answered the other, sitting up in bed.

"Well, then, perhaps there was something in what you said just now. Good
night."

"Good night," said the _attache_, lying down with a smile on his face. A
few minutes after the two old gentlemen were snoring peacefully in
unison.

CHAPTER IX.

Gustaf Torpander was still consumed by his silent passion. Every penny
he could save he devoted either to heightening his personal attractions
or to treating Marianne's brother; for hitherto he had never had the
courage to offer her any presents personally. The circuitous course he
was thus driven to follow in his courtship, was not altogether agreeable
to the Swede, and the drinking bouts at Begmand's cottage, in which he
was obliged to take part in order to get a glimpse of his sweetheart, he
found particularly distasteful.

At first Marianne was greatly annoyed by the attentions of the
journeyman printer. From her earliest childhood, the knowledge of her
exceptional beauty had made her careful to be on her guard against any
advances from the other sex; but since her misfortune, she had come to
regard every attention as a kind of persecution. But her shyness was
generally received with an incredulous smile or a coarse joke. What
shocked her most was, that men seemed no longer to believe that she
really meant to shun them in earnest, and she was therefore quite
nervous if any of them approached her. When, however, she saw that
Torpander did not presume on his acquaintance, and preserved his polite
and even respectful manner, she became at last used to his society, and
had even a kind of sympathetic feeling for him. For Tom Robson she had
always an unconquerable aversion. It is true that she saw Tom only from
his worst side, when he was drinking. In the morning, when Robson was
sober, there was something of the gentleman abou