ust it not seem to him who has only known you as your
natural self to see you now under this disguise? In an instant, swift as
thought, feeling and reflection began to clash and gain within her. Her
eyes filled with tears, while she forced herself to continue to appear
as a motionless figure, and it was a relief, indeed, to her when the
child began to stir--and the artist saw himself compelled to give the
sign that the curtain should fall again.

If the painful feeling of being unable to meet a valued friend had,
during the last few moments, been distressing Ottilie in addition to her
other emotions, she was now in still greater embarrassment. Was she to
present herself to him in this strange disguise? or had she better
change her dress? She did not hesitate--she did the last; and in the
interval she endeavored to collect and to compose herself; nor did she
properly recover her self-possession until at last, in her ordinary
costume, she had welcomed the new visitor.

CHAPTER VII

In so far as the Architect desired the happiness of his kind
patronesses, it was a pleasure to him, now that at last he was obliged
to go, to know that he was leaving them in good society with the
estimable Assistant. At the same time, however, when he thought of their
goodness in its relation to himself, he could not help feeling it a
little painful to see his place so soon, and as it seemed to his
modesty, so well, so completely supplied. He had lingered and lingered,
but now he forced himself away; what, after he was gone, he must endure
as he could, at least he could not stay to witness with his own eyes.

To the great relief of this half-melancholy feeling, the ladies at his
departure made him a present of a waistcoat, upon which he had watched
them both for some time past at work, with a silent envy of the
fortunate unknown, to whom it was by-and-by to belong. Such a present is
the most agreeable which a true-hearted man can receive; for while he
thinks of the unwearied play of the beautiful fingers at the making of
it, he cannot help flattering himself that in so long-sustained a labor
the feeling could not have remained utterly without an interest in its
accomplishment.

The ladies had now a new visitor to entertain, for whom they felt a real
regard, and whose stay with them it would be their endeavor to make as
agreeable as they could. There is in all women a peculiar circle of
inward interests, which remain always the sam