stuck-up things who were so quick to judge other folks! And
now they say there's nothing to make a fuss about; the girl is happier
than any lady, and her lover is more faithful to her than many a husband
is to his wife--fulfils all her desires, and gives her whatever she
wants. The servants call her 'my lady,' and they are glad to see her in
polite society, and ask no questions."

Here Mrs. Meyer paused for a moment, to give Fanny time to take it all
in and think it all over. Then she went on again as follows: "I don't
know how it is, but I don't feel a bit sleepy to-night. Perhaps it is
because I am in a strange room. I am always fancying the window to be
where the door is. I say, Fanny," she added suddenly, "can you do
embroidery?"

It seemed an innocent question enough, so Fanny answered that she could.

"It has just occurred to me that the last piece of embroidery you did is
at home--that sofa-cover, you know, with the kissing doves on it. It
stands just below your portrait which that young artist--you
remember--painted for nothing. Ah! since then he has become a famous
artist; since then he has painted your portrait in at least three
hundred different ways, and sent it to all the exhibitions, and there
the greatest noblemen pay him large sums of money for that very
portrait. Yes, and bid against each other for it, too. I might say that
that painter has founded his reputation on that one portrait, for since
then his name is familiar in all first-class houses. That picture did
the whole thing."

Ah! now she is trying the door of vanity!

"The man himself would not believe it," pursued Mrs. Meyer. "A great
nobleman, a very great nobleman, became so enamoured of the
portrait--naturally he saw it abroad--that he came, post-haste, all the
way to Pressburg, to convince himself that the subject of the portrait
really lived in our city. He came to our house, and you should have seen
his despair when he was told that you lived there no longer. At first he
wanted to blow his brains out. He succeeded, subsequently, however, in
finding out where you were--saw you, and since then he has been worse
than ever. He would come to our house, sit down on the sofa which he
knew you had embroidered, and stare at your portrait for hours at a
stretch. Your sisters were angry with him because he had not a look for
them; but I liked him, because I always used to hear something of you
from him. He was always following you, and I could at