orhood, and that so much valuable time
had to be lost in the processes of law. Frau Ceres said not a word
about the robbery; it almost seemed as if she had not heard of it. She
only rejoiced that Roland had grown so much during her absence. She
told Eric that she had met at the Baths a most aristocratic and amiable
lady, a relation of his mother, who had spoken of her with great
enthusiasm.

The very first evening after the return of Sonnenkamp and his family, a
carriage drove up in which were Bella and Clodwig. Eric was delighted
to greet his friends, but was somewhat shy of Bella.

"We have come to protect you from this savage," she whispered to him
behind her fan; "we will show him that you belong to us. And now you
will leave everything and come to us, will you not?"

The words thrilled Eric; he could only bow his thanks.

Bella observed her husband's embarrassment as he stood with Sonnenkamp.
His fine and sensitive nature could never overcome a feeling of
timidity, of terror, whenever he found himself confronted with this
herculean shape. Bella helped him out of the difficulty by saying
jestingly, "Herr Sonnenkamp, you must have seen many strange things in
your life; did you ever happen to fall in with thieves who openly
confessed they had stolen, or were proposing to steal?"

Sonnenkamp looked at her in amazement.

"We are such thieves, in broad daylight," she cried, laughing, and
turning to her husband she continued:--

"Now do you speak, dear Clodwig."

Clodwig hesitatingly expressed his wish to have Eric live with him.
Sonnenkamp's sharp glance fell upon Bella. The forefinger of his left
hand was already raised in playful menace against her, and he was on
the point of saying, "I understand you," when he checked himself, and,
laying his finger on his lips, said:--

"I am glad to see that our Herr Eric"--with a peculiar emphasis on the
word "our"--"that our Herr Eric stands so high in your good graces."

Eric was struck by the peculiar stress laid upon the word "our." He
seemed to have become a piece of property. Still more surprised was he
at Sonnenkamp's offering him his hand the next moment and saying:--

"You remain ours, do you not?"

Eric bowed.

Bella dwelt, with intentional emphasis, upon the particulars of her
visit to Eric's mother in the University-town. She evidently desired to
let Herr Sonnenkamp know that a man of Eric's rank and position was not
to be crushed on account of a triflin