who was his bed-maker and stove-lighter, his washer and wringer, cook,
errand-maid, and general lion's-provider, and for the rest a very orderly
creature, had no sovereign authority in this last citadel of Teufelsdrockh;
only some once in the month she half-forcibly made her way thither, with
broom and duster, and (Teufelsdrockh hastily saving his manuscripts)
effected a partial clearance, a jail-delivery of such lumber as was not
Literary. These were her _Erdbeben_ (earthquakes), which Teufelsdrockh
dreaded worse than the pestilence; nevertheless, to such length he had been
forced to comply. Glad would he have been to sit here philosophizing
forever, or till the litter, by accumulation, drove him out of doors: but
Lieschen was his right-arm, and spoon, and necessary of life, and would not
be flatly gainsayed. We can still remember the ancient woman; so silent
that some thought her dumb; deaf also you would often have supposed her;
for Teufelsdrockh, and Teufelsdrockh only, would she serve or give heed to;
and with him she seemed to communicate chiefly by signs; if it were not
rather by some secret divination that she guessed all his wants, and
supplied them. Assiduous old dame! she scoured, and sorted, and swept, in
her kitchen, with the least possible violence to the ear; yet all was tight
and right there: hot and black came the coffee ever at the due moment; and
the speechless Lieschen herself looked out on you, from under her clean
white coif with its lappets, through her clean withered face and wrinkles,
with a look of helpful intelligence, almost of benevolence.

Few strangers, as above hinted, had admittance hither: the only one we
ever saw there, ourselves excepted, was the Hofrath Heuschrecke, already
known, by name and expectation, to the readers of these pages. To us, at
that period, Herr Heuschrecke seemed one of those purse-mouthed,
crane-necked, clean-brushed, pacific individuals, perhaps sufficiently
distinguished in society by this fact, that, in dry weather or in wet,
"they never appear without their umbrella." Had we not known with what