uld
be of age."

"And he never came, then?" inquired Fritz.

"No, never again," said she mournfully.

"Ah, I would come if I had been in his place," exclaimed Fritz eagerly,
with a flashing eye. "I never fail in an appointment I promise to keep;
and to fail to meet a betrothed--why it is unpardonable!"

He had raised his voice from the whisper in which he had previously
spoken, and its indignant tone seemed quite loud.

"Perhaps he couldn't come," said Madaleine more composedly. "Besides,
we were not engaged; all was over between us."

"I'm very glad to hear that," replied Fritz. "It would have been
dastardly on his part otherwise! But, would you like to keep the dog
for his sake, Fraulein Vogelstein? I have got no claim to him, you
know."

"Oh dear no, I would not like to deprive you of him for the world, much
as I love the poor faithful fellow. Why, he would think nobody was his
proper master if he were constantly changing hands like this!"

"Poor old Gelert!" said Fritz; and the dog, hearing himself talked
about, here raised himself up again from his recumbent attitude by the
side of the bed and thrust his black nose into the hand of his master,
who tried feebly to caress him.

"`Fritz,' you mean," corrected Miss Madaleine, determined to have her
point about his right name.

"Well, if you call him so, I shall think you mean me," said Fritz
jokingly, as well as his feeble utterance would permit his voice to be
expressive. He wanted, however, to imply much more than the mere words.

"That would not be any great harm, would it?" she replied with a little
smile, her tears of sorrow at Armand de la Tour's untimely fate having
dried up as quickly as raindrops disappear after a shower as soon as the
sun shines out again; however, she apparently now thought the
conversation was becoming a little too personal, for she proceeded to
ply the invalid with more soup in order to stop his mouth and prevent
him from replying to this last speech of hers!

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE "LITTLE FAT MAN."

"Hullo! What fails with the well-born and most worthy lady, her to make
in such pitiable plight?" inquired Burgher Jans, poking his little round
face into the parlour of the house in the Gulden Strasse, just as
Lorischen, bending over her mistress, was endeavouring to raise her on
to the sofa, where she would be better enabled to apply restoratives in
order to bring her to.

The old nurse was glad of any assistanc