aracter of a supplicant for aid, perhaps a
beggar!

Besides, Wolff was his son!

Whatever wrong the father had done her she must forget it, and the task
was not difficult; for now--she felt it--no matter from what motive,
he honestly desired to unite her to his son. If her lover now led her
through the door adorned with the huge, showy escutcheon, she would
no longer come as a person unwillingly tolerated, but as a welcome
helper-perhaps as the saviour of the imperilled house. Of the women of
the Eysvogel family she forbade herself to think.

How touching the handsome, aristocratic, grey-haired man seemed to her
in his helpless weakness! If her father would only receive him, he would
find it no easier than she to deny him the compassion he so greatly
needed.

She knocked at the lonely mourner's door and was admitted.

He was sitting, with his head bowed on his hands, opposite to the
large portrait of her dead mother in her bridal robes. The dusk of the
gathering twilight concealed the picture, but he had doubtless gazed
long at the lovely features, and still beheld them with his mental
vision.

Els was received with a mournful greeting; but when Herr Ernst heard
what had brought her to him, he fiercely commanded her to tell Herr
Casper that he would have nothing more to do with him.

Els interceded for the unfortunate man, begging, pleading, and assuring
her father that she would never give up Wolff. The happiness of her
whole life was centred in him and his love. If he refused the Eysvogels
the aid besought by the old merchant who, in his humility, seemed a
different man----

Here her father indignantly broke in, ordering her to disturb him no
longer. But now the heritage of his own nature asserted itself in Els
and, with an outburst of indignation, she pointed to the picture of
her mother, whose kind heart certainly could not have endured to see
a broken-hearted man, on whose rescue the happiness of her own child
depended, turned from her door like an importunate beggar.

At this the man whose locks had long been grey sprang from his chair
with the agility of a youth, exclaiming in vehement excitement: "To
embitter the hours devoted to the most sacred grief is genuine Eysvogel
selfishness. Everything for themselves! What do they care for others?
I except your Wolff; let the future decide what concerns him and you. I
will stand by you. But to hope for happiness and peace-nay, even a life
without bitter sorr