tter for the poor thing if she did die; she would not
suffer so much then, at any rate."

"Then, why don't you send for the doctor?"

"Her sickness is not to be cured by any doctor."

"Hum!" said Mr. Meyer, beginning to pick his teeth.

His wife waited for a little while, and thus continued in a tearful
voice--

"She is always thinking of you. All she wants is to see her father. She
says if she could kiss his hand but once, she would die of joy."

At these words the whole family in chorus sent up a piping wail like an
organ. Mr. Meyer pretended to blow his nose.

"Where is she, then?" he inquired in a constrained voice.

"In the Zuckermandel quarter, in one poor room which she has hired for a
month, abandoned by every one."

"Then she is _poor_!" thought Mr. Meyer. "Perhaps, therefore, all that
Teresa said about her is not quite true?"

Perhaps she had loved some one, and accepted gifts from him. That was
not such a great crime, surely, and it did not follow from that, that
she had sold herself. Those old spinsters, who have never experienced
the world's primest joys, are so jealous of the diversions of young
people.

"Hum! Then that bad girl speaks of me sometimes, eh?"

"She fancies your curse rests upon her. Since she departed----"

Here the conversation was again interrupted by a general outburst of
weeping.

"Since she departed," continued Mrs. Meyer, "she has never risen from
her bed, and leave it I know she never will, unless it is to be put into
her cof-cof-coffin."

"Well, well, bring her home this afternoon," said Mr. Meyer, thoroughly
softened at last.

At these words the whole family fell upon his neck and kissed and
fondled him. Never was there a better man or a kinder father in the
whole world, they said.

They scarce waited for the table to be cleared in order to deck out the
worthy pater-familias in his best, and, putting a stick in his hand, the
whole lot of them accompanied him to the Zuckermandel quarter, where
Matilda lay in a poor garret, in which there was nothing, in the
strictest sense of the word, but a bed and an innumerable quantity of
medicine-bottles.

The heart of the good father was lacerated by this spectacle. So Matilda
had nothing at all, poor girl!

The girl would have risen when she beheld her father, but was unable to
do so. Mr. Meyer rushed towards her with a penitent countenance, just as
if he had sinned against her. The girl seized his hand, pressed it to