s funeral, Van Haubitz, footsore and emaciated,
and reduced to his last pfenning, walked wearily into the city of
Amsterdam. There a great surprise awaited him.

"Your father had not disinherited you?" I exclaimed, when the Dutchman
made a momentary pause at this point of his narrative.

"He had left a will devising his entire property to my brothers, and not
even naming me. But a slight formality was omitted, which rendered the
document of no more value than the parchment it was drawn upon. The
signature was wanting. My father had the weakness, no uncommon one, of
disliking whatever reminded him of his mortality. He would have fancied
himself nearer his grave had he signed his will. And thus he had delayed
till it was too late. I found myself joint heir with my brothers. By far
the greater part of my father's large capital was embarked in his bank,
and in extensive financial operations, which it would have been
necessary to liquidate at considerable disadvantage, to operate the
partition prescribed by law. Seeing this, I proposed to my brothers to
admit me as partner in the firm, with the stipulation that I should have
no active share in its direction, until my knowledge of business and
steadiness of conduct gave them the requisite confidence in me. After
some deliberation they agreed to this; and three years later their
opinion of me had undergone such a change, that two of them retired to
estates in the country, leaving me the chief management of the concern."

"And Madame Van Haubitz; when did she rejoin you?"

"Immediately the change in my fortunes occurred. Reckless as I at that
time was, and utterly devoid of feeling as you must have thought me, I
could not remember without emotion the disinterested affection,
delicacy, and unselfishness she had exhibited on discovery of my real
circumstances. During my long illness I had had time to reflect, and
when I left my sick-bed in that rude but hospitable German farm-house,
it was as a penitent past offences, and with a strong resolution to
atone them. Within a week after my father's funeral, I was on my way to
Vienna, to fetch Emilie to the opulent home she had anticipated when she
married me. Her joy at seeing me was scarcely increased when she heard I
now really was the rich banker she had at first thought me."

"And Madame Sendel?"

"Returned to Amsterdam with us. There was good about the old lady, and
by purloining her artificials, limiting her snuff, and soaki