mmermann?' 'Ah, you joke!' was her answer. I
said, 'No, I do not, I am quite in earnest; here I have already a ring
and yet another present (a silk purse with a hundred carlines), by
which I can verify my proposal.' 'Now, if you are in earnest, and bring
the proposal from Herr von Summermann, I do not hesitate a moment.'
Thus she took the ring, but refused to accept the hundred carlines, and
empowered me to convey her assent." The further course also of this
very exciting business was extraordinary and dramatic. The happy lover
had settled that his wooer should obtain for him more certain
information. Now, it is true that a written line in this scribbling age
might have been possible, but it appears that written information was
considered too prolix, and it was undoubtedly then difficult to give it
in one line without titles and congratulations; so it was determined
that, as in "Tristan and Isolde," the result of an undertaking was
telegraphed by a black or a white seal, so here by the transmission of
a certain volume of a valuable legal work of the state chancery, it was
to be signified that the proposal was accepted; another volume of the
same work would have intimated the contrary. And the difference of the
new conscientious period from the old one of Queen Isolde consisted
only in this, that no false signal would be given.

But though in this union the heart to a certain degree asserted its
rights, it was less often the case with men of education and capacity.
Professor Achenwall, a distinguished law teacher at Goettingen, made an
offer to a daughter of Johann Jacob Moser without ever having seen her,
and she in like manner accepted; after her death he married a
Demoiselle Jaeger, of Gotha, to whom he proposed after he had seen her
accidentally on a journey, passing some days in the house of an
acquaintance. Thus it was generally the position and the household
which was the object of women, as it still is in many circles of the
people. The quiet dreams of the candidates for matrimony were
frequently exactly as portrayed by the sober-minded Puetter: "The meals
at the _restaurant_ did not answer to their wishes; to eat alone was
not to their mind; fellow-boarders were not to be reckoned upon; the
household cares concerning the wash, beer, and sugar were disagreeable
occupations; and in the evening, when tired after work, to pay visits
to others when one did not know whether it was opportune, or to await
the visits of