the
two wooden-framed lithographs of King Frederick William III. and Queen
Louise, over which was a bronzed bust of old Bluecher squeezed in
between the top of the stove and the low ceiling and looking gruffly
down.

Sebastian had thrown himself in feverish haste into one corner of the
sofa, I into the other, when the young girl came in with the small
plates for the tarts. I was now able to look at her leisurely, for she
waited to light a gas-burner, it being already too dark to read. She
was rather short than tall, but her figure was so symmetrical, so
round, yet slender, that the eye followed her every movement with
rapture, spite of her unbecoming, and almost ugly dress. Her feet,
which were made visible to us by her standing on tip-toe to reach the
gas burner, were daintily small as those of a child of ten, her little
deft snow-white fingers looked as if they had always rested on a silken
lap. What white things she had on, a small upright collar, cuffs, and a
waitress's apron, were so immaculately clean as to form a striking
contrast with the stained carpet, dusty furniture, and traces of the
flies of a hundred summers visible on all around.

I ought, I am aware, to attempt some sketch of her face, but I despair
beforehand. Not that her features were so incomparably beautiful as to
defy the skill of any and every artist. But what gave the peculiar
charm to this face of hers, was a certain spirituality which I found it
no easy matter to define to myself, a calm melancholy, a half-shy,
half-threatening expression, a springtide bloom, which, having suddenly
felt the touch of frost, no longer promised a joyous fruitful summer;
in short, a face that would have puzzled and perplexed more mature
decipherers of character, and which could not fail to make an
irresistible impression upon a dreamer of sixteen.

"What is your name, Fraeulein, if I may venture to ask?" said I, by way
of opening the conversation, my friend seeming as though he had no more
important object than the mere consuming of tartlets.

"Lottka," replied the girl without looking at me, and already preparing
to leave the room.

"Lottka!" cried I. "How do you come to have this Polish name?"

"My father was a Pole."

And then she was back again in the shop.

"Would you have the kindness, Miss Lottka, to bring me a glass of
_bishop_." I called after her.

"Directly," was her reply.

Sebastian was studying the advertisements in the "Vossische Journ