varied specimens of nationality and
appearance nothing in the very least like this man, beside whom I felt
myself blundering, clumsy, and unpolished. It was not mere natural grace
of manner. He had that, but it had been cultivated somewhere, and
cultivated highly.

"Yes?" he said.

"At seven--yes. It is 'Tannhauser' to-night. And the rooms--I believe
they have rooms in the house."

"Ah, then I will inquire about it," said he, with an exceedingly open
and delightful smile. "I thank you for telling me. Adieu, _mein Herr_."

"Is he asleep?" I asked, abruptly, and pointing to the bundle.

"Yes; _armes Kerlchen_! just now he is," said the young man.

He was quite young, I saw. In that half light I supposed him even
younger than he really was. He looked down at the bundle again and
smiled.

"I should like to see him," said I, politely and gracefully, seized by
an impulse of which I felt ashamed, but which I yet could not resist.

With that I stepped forward and came to examine the bundle. He moved
the plaid a little aside and showed me a child--a very young, small,
helpless child, with closed eyes, immensely long, black, curving lashes,
and fine, delicate black brows. The small face was flushed, but even in
sleep this child looked melancholy. Yet he was a lovely child--most
beautiful and most pathetic to see.

I looked at the small face in silence, and a great desire came upon me
to look at it oftener--to see it again, then up at that of the father.
How unlike the two faces! Now that I fairly looked at the man I found he
was different from what I had thought; older, sparer, with more sharply
cut features. I could not tell what the child's eyes might be--those of
the father were piercing as an eagle's; clear, open, strange. There was
sorrow in the face, I saw, as I looked so earnestly into it; and it was
worn as if with a keen inner life. This glance was one of those which
penetrate deep, not the glance of a moment, but a revelation for life.

"He is very beautiful," said I.

"_Nicht wahr?_" said the other, softly.

"Look here," I added, going to a sofa which was strewn with papers,
books, and other paraphernalia; "couldn't we put him here, and then go
and see about the rooms? Such a young, tender child must not be carried
about the passages, and the house is full of draughts."

I do not know what had so suddenly supplied me with this wisdom as to
what was good for a "young, tender child," nor can I account for