e all those pictures were hung in the best light, and it
would be fruitless to attempt a description of the father's
astonishment, joy, and rapture. The pictures were, he asserted, far
more beautiful than he had seen them in his recollection. "You say my
daughter's admirer is young, well-bred, and of good condition; you give
me your word, that he will be a steady man, and never alienate these
pictures again after my death? If all this be so, he needs possess no
other fortune than these pictures, for he is superabundantly rich. But
where is he?"

A side-door opened, and Edward stepped in, in a dress nearly the same
as that of his likeness, the shepherd, in the old picture of Quintin
Messys.----"He?" cried Walther: "whence have you the pictures?" When
Edward had related the singular occurrence, the old man took the hand
of his daughter, and laid it in that of the youth, saying: "Sophia
ventures much, but she does it out of love to her father; I presume, my
son, you will now have become prudent and good. But, one condition; you
live with me, and Eulenboeck never crosses my threshold, nor are you
ever to set eyes upon him again."

"Certainly not;" answered Edward, "besides he sets off from here
to-morrow on his travels with the foreign prince."

They proceeded to the father's house, he led the youth into his
library: "Here, young man, you find your curiosities too again, which
your whirligig librarian sold me for an old song. In future you will
hold these treasures of your father more sacred."

The lovers were happy. When they were alone, Sophia folded the youth
tenderly in her arms. "I love thee, Edward, from my heart," she
whispered to him, "but I was forced the other day, to give way to my
father's humour, and then and to-day to play the part of unqualified
obedience, in order, in the first instance, not to abandon all hope,
and to-day to be thine without opposition; for if he had observed my
love he would never have given his consent so soon."

Some weeks after, they were married. The youth found no difficulty in
becoming a regular and happy man; in the arms of his wife and the
circle of his children, he reflected on his wild youth only as a
feverish dream. Eulenboeck had left the city with the prince, and with
him the titular Librarian, who obtained that place of secretary to the
prince which Edward had applied for, and some years after married the
easy fair one who had caused our young friend such an ill name in