ther, coming up to his friend
and looking almost tenderly into the handsome, manly face.

"I have really nothing to say against this playing at farming if
I only know how and where.--You see, Frank, if I were not such a
poverty-stricken wretch, I would say to you this minute: 'Here, my boy,
is a capital of so much; now go to work and get the moth-eaten old
place into some kind of order.' Things cannot go on as they are.
But--well, you know--" he ended, with a sigh.

Frank Linden made no reply, but he whistled softly a lively air, as he
always did when he wished to drive away unpleasant thoughts.

"O yes, whistle away," muttered the little man, "it is the only music
you are likely to hear, unless it is the creaking of a rusty hinge or
the concert of a highly respectable family of mice which have settled
in your room--brr--Frank! Just imagine this lonely hole in winter--snow
on the mountains, snow on the roads, snow in the garden and white
flakes in the air! Good Heavens! What will you do all the long evenings
which we used to spend in the Taunus, in the Bockenheimer Strasse, or
in the theatre? Who will play euchre with you here? For whom will you
make your much-admired poems? I am sure they won't be understood in the
village inn. Ah, when I look at you and think of you moping here alone,
and with all your cares heavy upon you!"

He sighed.

"I will tell you something, Frank, joking aside," he continued. "You
must marry. And I advise you in this matter not to lay so much stress
on your ideal; pass over for once the sylph-like forms, liquid eyes and
sweet faces in favor of another advantage which nothing will supply the
place of, in our prosaic age. Don't bring me a poor girl, Frank, though
she were a very pearl of women. In your position it would be perfect
folly, a sin against yourself and all who come after you. It won't make
the least difference if your fine verses don't exactly fit her. You
wouldn't always be making poetry, even to the loveliest woman. O yes,
laugh away!"

He brushed the ashes from his cigar. "In Frankfort--if you had only
chosen--you might have done something. But you were quite dazzled by
that little Thea's lovely eyes. How often I have raged about it! When a
man has passed his twenty-fifth year he really ought to be more
sensible."

Frank Linden was obstinately silent, and the little man knew at once
that he had as he used to say, "put his foot in it."

"Come, Frank, don't be cross," he c