so boundlessly as the model of all womanly
virtues, that I would rather eat my head than forget what I owe to you.
But will you have the goodness to remember that we have sleighing now?
and although we two have merely slid here on foot, still I thought
myself entitled, as your true knight, to take this liberty. If this was
an error, can you find it in your heart to condemn me for it to the
eternal punishment of your direful wrath?"

She could not help laughing at the crushed and penitential mien, which
the cunning rascal knew so well how to assume.

"Go!" she said, in her old tone again. "On Christmas night the Saviour
came into the world to suffer for all sinners. And, perhaps, you may be
forgiven too."

"I thank you," he responded, very quietly. "And in token thereof, dear
fellow-Christian, seal your solemn forgiveness, in the sight of this
starry heaven, with a voluntary, sisterly kiss. No, you must not refuse
me this, unless you want me to pass a sleepless night. You are no
Philistine, dearest Angelica."

"I wish I were one," she sighed. But then she kindly and without
further resistance offered him her red lips, and said, once more:
"Good-night, my dear Rosenbusch!" and the house-door closed between
them.

_BOOK VI_.

CHAPTER I.

The new year had come, but it brought little that was new.

One day, about the middle of January, when a light snow was falling in
large flakes, the carriage of the old countess had been standing for
more than an hour before the hotel in which Irene was stopping with her
uncle. The coachman, buried in his high-shouldered bearskin coat, had
fallen into a doze, and the horses hung their heads and meekly suffered
themselves to be covered with the falling snow. But it seemed as though
the silent fall of the flakes would come to an end sooner than the
storm of German and French phrases with which the lively old lady
overwhelmed the young Fraeulein, who sat absently listening to her.

Her uncle had retired into a window-niche, and was looking over an
illustrated hunting-book; now and then he threw in a word, a question
about this or that acquaintance, which immediately gave the old
countess an opportunity to begin a new chapter of her town-gossip.

When, in the midst of this, the servant announced the arrival of the
lieutenant, Irene could not suppress a glad "Ah!" This time she found
his riding-boots, stif