to impart what had happened to Frau Ceres, the very first thing, in his
quiet and self-possessed, his easy, his all-subduing manner that he so
much admired.

"Make no reply if she storms. This stormy outburst is no longer
formidable."

In this declaration there was a sort of tranquillizing influence which
Sonnenkamp himself felt. It is better that the whole world should stand
up in arms against him, than to be forever and forever under the
dominion of this crafty, threatening, and annoying woman. Now her
weapon was gone, and the dagger which she had always kept hidden was
now unsheathed in the eyes of all the world, and was in every hand.

Pranken went to Frau Ceres; he had to wait a long time in the
ante-room, but at last Fraeulein Perini came out.

Pranken briefly told her that the secret she had confided to him, and
which he had kept so faithfully, was now made public.

"So soon?" said Fraeulein Perini; and when Pranken inquired how Frau
Ceres would be likely to receive the annihilation of her hopes of being
ennobled, and the whole detestable uproar in the world, she replied,
smiling, that she could not tell, for Frau Ceres was now suffering
under a terrible trial of a wholly different kind.

She could hardly go on, she was so choked with laughter, but finally it
came out.

Yesterday morning, Frau Ceres in some incomprehensible way had broken
off her most beautiful nail, a real prodigy of most careful cherishing,
and she was utterly inconsolable.

Pranken could not help joining in the laugh. He accompanied Fraeulein
Perini into the room.

Frau Ceres gave him her left hand to kiss, holding the right carefully
concealed. She asked whether Pranken had brought with him the armorial
device, and pointed to an embroidery frame on which she wanted at once
to work the coat-of-arms, and also to an altar-cloth, whose border was
already completed.

Pranken now broke the news to her in a very careful manner.

"And he always said I was stupid! I am cleverer than he," Frau Ceres
burst out; "I always told him that Europe was no place for us, and that
we ought to have remained where we were. Hasn't he caught it now? He's
ashamed to come himself, and so he has sent you. He's ashamed, because
I, the simpleton, who had never learned anything, knew the affair so
much better than he did."

In this first moment, a mischievous joy seemed to be Frau Ceres'
predominant feeling; the man who had always treated her as a feeble
p