re a painter? and a
great one, from what my daughter Albertine tells me--and she knows what
she is talking about in such matters, I can assure you. I'm very glad
you are. I love pictures, and, as my daughter Albertine says, 'Art'
altogether, most tremendously. I simply dote upon it. And I know
something about it, too. I'm a first-rate judge of a picture. My
daughter Albertine and I know what we're about there. We've got eyes in
our heads. Tell me, my dear painter, tell me without hesitation, wasn't
it you who painted those pictures which I stop and look at every day as
I pass them, because I cannot help standing to admire the colouring of
them? Oh, it is beautiful!"

Edmund did not quite understand how the Commissionsrath managed to see
any pictures of his daily in passing them, seeing that he had never
painted any signboards, that he could remember. But after a good deal
of questioning, it turned out that Melchior Bosswinkel meant certain
lacquered tea-trays, stove-shades, and things of that sort, which he
saw and much admired in a shop-window as he went to business of a
morning, after two or three sardines and a glass of Dantziger at the
Sala Tarone. These productions constituted his highest ideal of the
pictorial art. This disgusted the painter not a little; and he cursed,
internally, Bosswinkel and his wretched chatter, which was preventing
him from making any approach to the young lady. At last there came up
an acquaintance, who engaged him in conversation, and Edmund took
advantage of this to go and sit down beside Albertine, who seemed to be
very much pleased at his doing so.

Every one who knows Miss Albertine Bosswinkel is aware that, as has
been said, she is the very personification of youth, beauty, and
delightsomeness; that, like all other Berlin young ladies, she dresses
in the best possible taste in the latest fashions, sings in Zelter's
choir, has lessons on the piano from Herr Lauska, dances most
beautifully, sent a tulip charmingly embroidered and surrounded by
violets to the last exhibition, and though by nature of a bright,
lively temperament, is quite capable of displaying the proper amount of
sentimentality required at tea-parties, at all events. Also, that she
copies poetical extracts and sentences which have pleased her in the
writings of Goethe, Jean Paul, and other talented men and women, in the
loveliest little tiny handwriting into a nice little book with a gilt
morocco cover.

Of course i