cannot be, for my papa is dead."

"So he is, sweetheart; but I may be your dear friend, mayn't I? Would you
like to have me for a friend?"

"Yes, yes!" she cried, and throwing her arms about my neck gave me a
thousand kisses, which I returned with delight.

After we had talked and laughed together we sat down at table, and the
heroine Therese gave me a delicate supper accompanied by exquisite wines.
"I have never given the margrave better fare," said she, "at those nice
little suppers we used to take together."

Wishing to probe the disposition of her son, whom I had engaged to take
away with me, I addressed several remarks to him, and soon discovered
that he was of a false and deceitful nature, always on his guard, taking
care of what he said, and consequently speaking only from his head and
not from his heart. Every word was delivered with a quiet politeness
which, no doubt, was intended to please me.

I told him that this sort of thing was all very well on occasion; but
that there were times when a man's happiness depended on his freedom from
constraint; then and only then was his amiability, if he had any,
displayed. His mother, thinking to praise him, told me that reserve was
his chief characteristic, that she had trained him to keep his counsel at
all times and places, and that she was thus used to his being reserved
with her as with everyone else.

"All I can say is," said I, "your system is an abominable one. You may
have strangled in their infancy all the finer qualities with which nature