ish to throw no shadow either upon the girl or
her parents--_enfin_, they were very cordial with me, and I, in return,
possibly went too far. A few years afterward, I felt something like a
gentle gnawing in my left side, where one is supposed to carry his
conscience. As it did not subside, I wrote to this place in order to
inquire, as a friend of the family, after the health of its different
members. The letter was returned by the post, as the address could not
be found.

"Now, looked at from a strictly moral point of view, I ought not to
have felt, even after this, that I had justified myself. But what would
you have? My contact with the king of the desert had somewhat hardened
my skin, and the before-mentioned gnawing ceased. The girl had never
been exactly what you would call beautiful, but was very attractive
because of her freshness, her free nature, her merry laughter from a
mouth of magnificent teeth. You know complexions of that kind have
something especially dangerous about them for our weaker sex. To be
brief, she had, in spite of all this, completely passed out of my
memory until I saw her again to-day in her daughter--pardon, in our
daughter, I meant to say."

"You sought out the girl? And how did the poor child receive you?"

"As badly as ever a child could receive its long-lost father. You can
imagine, dear Fraeulein, that it was no easy mission for me to fulfill.
A man cuts such a wretched figure in the character of the repentant
father, who, at the very first meeting with his grown-up daughter, is
obliged to beg her pardon for having totally forgotten her. But there
are sour apples into which one would rather bite than let himself be
bitten by his conscience. I assumed a fatherly, venerable mien, and,
when I entered the room where the girl was, and recognized in her her
dead mother--as if the resemblance had been stolen from a mirror--I can
assure you that at last the voice of Nature asserted itself. But
scarcely had I introduced myself, with the necessary delicacy,
to the unsuspecting child as one who had certain sacred, though
long-neglected, rights to her childish affection, when the strange
creature springs up like a little fury, and flies into the adjoining
room. Now I ask you, my dear Fraeulein, is a father who wishes to make
good his faults a monster from whom one ought to run away? I stood
there as if rooted to the spot; and, as soon as I recovered from my
surprise, I did my best to conciliate