nd in blessing on my head, as is the
custom with us. I would not disturb the joy of the feast, and not until
it was ended--oh! I ruined the joy of his whole life! There were no
more feasts for him--did I flee with Conrad. I persuaded myself that my
father would give us his blessing, when he should see that it could not
be otherwise. We wrote to him, but he did not answer. He sent us word,
through a friend, that he had had two children, who were dead, and for
whom he earnestly prayed that it might be well with them in the other
world. And one word more he sent me,--'Thou seekest honor before the
world, and for honor hast thou forsaken thy father.' I wrote back
protesting with a solemn oath that I had wished to obtain no earthly
honor through Conrad, promising to clothe myself with humiliation and
shame in the eyes of the world, and that oath I have kept until the
present day.

"Conrad soon received tidings of my mother's death, and my father
followed her in a few months. I inherited a small fortune, and we went
to the Rhine. Down below, yonder, we lived twelve years in a little
lower Rhenish village, hidden from all the world, happy in each other.
We needed nothing from the world but ourselves. Conrad wished
constantly to marry me; but I had vowed to robe myself in ignominy
during the whole period of my existence. We might have been united here
by civil contract. That, too, I refused. I used to attend church,
impelled by the desire to pray in common with my fellow human beings. I
had my quiet corner, and while the organ was pealing, and a divine
service different from my own was being solemnized, I would sit alone
and pray out of the prayer-book which my father had composed, and from
the other, which my brother had had on the field of battle, and which
had rested on his heart till it beat no more. I was in the church and
was no stranger, for there were people beside me, praying after another
fashion, but to the same Spirit which I also invoke, and this Spirit
will know and explain why men turn themselves to him in such different
ways. Now I believe I may revoke my sentence of self-excommunication."

"You may, you must," said the Banker, speaking first, and rising as he
spoke. The Professorin rose and embraced the narrator.

"Well, then, will you hear the close, too?" resumed Fraeulein Milch. All
were still, and she proceeded:--

"We came hither. How I have lived here, you know. At our change of
residence, Conrad expr