--has concluded her twelve months' engagement at the _Hof Theater_ of
B----, where she doubtless considered, and not without reason, that her
talents and exertions were inadequately compensated by a salary of ten
thousand florins. The gay society of that _Residenz_ will sensibly feel
the loss of the accomplished and fascinating comedian, who has accepted
an engagement at Vienna, on the more suitable terms of fifteen thousand
florins, with two months' _conge_, and other advantages. Before
proceeding to ravish the eyes and cars of the pleasure-loving population
of the _Kaiser-Stadt, la belle_ Sendel is off to the baths, under the
protecting wing of the watchful guardian who has presided at all her
theatrical triumphs."

"Clear enough, I think," said Van, when I raised my eyes from the
protracted periods of the penny-a-liner.

I had nothing to say against the lucidity of the paragraph, nor any
thing to urge, at all likely to avail, against the prosecution of Van's
designs upon the lady's hand and fifteen thousand florins, with "two
months' _conge_ and other advantages." No possible sophistry, to which I
was equal, could prove the marriage to be against his interest; and as
to trying him on the tack of delicacy--"imposition on an unprotected
woman,--degrading dependence on her exertions," and so forth--I knew the
thick skin and indomitable self-conceit of the cannonier would repel
such feather-shafts without feeling them, or that the utmost effect I
could expect to produce would be to get myself into a quarrel with the
redoubtable native of the Netherlands, a predicament in which, as a man
of peace, I was by no means anxious to find myself. So after hazarding
the fruitless hint with which the reader was made acquainted at the
commencement of this narrative, I abstained from all further
intermeddling, and retired to my apartment, leaving Van Haubitz to con
the declaration with which he was that evening to rejoice the ears of
the fair and too-confiding Sendel.

I went to bed early that night and, saw nothing more of the Hollander
till the next morning, when I was roused from a balmy slumber at the
untimely hour of seven, by his bursting into my room with more
impetuosity than ceremony, with the gestures of a maniac and shouts of
victory. Before my eyes were half open, he was more than half through
the history of his proceedings on the previous evening. His success had
been complete. Emilie had faltered, with downcast eyes,