ones?" demands Eugen. "All blue, you know. He wears
blue clothes."

"Assuredly, _mein Herr_, but of a much dearer description; real English,
magnificent."

She retires to find them, and a young lady who has been standing near us
turns and observes:

"Excuse me--you want stockings for your little boy?"

We both assent. It is a joint affair, of equal importance to both of us.

"I wouldn't have those," says she, and I remark her face.

I have seen her often before--moreover, I have seen her look very
earnestly at Eugen. I learned later that her name was Anna Sartorius.
Ere she can finish, the shop-woman with wreathed smiles still lingering
about her face, returns and produces stockings--fine, blue-ribbed
stockings, such as the children of rich English parents wear. Their
fineness, and the smooth quality of the wool, and the good shape appear
to soothe Eugen's feelings. He pushes away his heap of striped ones,
which look still coarser and commoner now, observing hopefully and
cheerily:

"_Ja wohl!_ That is more what I mean." (The poor dear fellow had meant
nothing, but he knew what he wanted when he saw it.) "These look more
like thy legs, Sigmund, _nicht wahr_? I'll take--"

I dug him violently in the ribs.

"Hold on, Eugen! How much do they cost the pair, Fraeulein?"

"Two thalers twenty-five; the very best quality," she says, with a
ravishing smile.

"There! eight shillings a pair!" say I. "It is ridiculous."

"Eight shillings!" he repeats, ruefully. "That is too much."

"They are real English, _mein Herr_," she says, feelingly.

"But, _um Gotteswillen_! don't we make any like them in Germany?"

"Oh, sir!" she says, reproachfully.

"Those others are such brutes," he remarks, evidently wavering.

I am in despair. The young woman is annoyed to find that he does not
even see the amiable looks she has bestowed upon him, so she sweeps back
the heap of striped stockings and announces that they are only three
marks the pair--naturally inferior, but you can not have the best
article for nothing.

Fraeulein Sartorius, about to go, says to Eugen:

"_Mein Herr_, ask for such and such an article. I know they keep them,
and you will find it what you want."

Eugen, much touched and much surprised (as he always is and has been)
that any one should take an interest in him, makes a bow, and a speech,
and rushes off to open the door for Fraeulein Sartorius, thanking her
profusely for her goodness. The young lady b