of goods and, moreover, was a somnambulist. He looked higher for his
Heinz, and had already found the right match for him. So, turning to him
again, he said earnestly:

"Drive the bewitching vision from your mind, Sir Heinz. You don't know
--but I could tell you some tales about women who walk in their sleep by
moonlight."

"Well?" asked Heinz eagerly.

"As a maiden," Biberli continued impressively, with the pious intention
of guarding his master from injury, "the somnambulist merely runs the
risk of falling from the roof, or whatever accident may happen to a
sleepwalker; but if she enters the estate of holy matrimony, the evil
power which has dominion over her sooner or later transforms her at
midnight into a troll, which seizes her husband's throat in his sleep and
strangles him."

"Nursery tales!" cried Heinz angrily, but Biberli answered calmly:

"It can make no difference to you what occurs in the case of such
possessed women, for henceforward the Ortlieb house will be closed
against you. And--begging your pardon--it is fortunate. For, my lord,
the horse mounted by the first Schorlin--the chaplain showed it to you in
the picture--came from the ark in which Noah saved it with the other
animals from the deluge, and the first Lady Schorlin whom the family
chronicles mention was a countess. Your ancestresses came from citadels
and castles; no Schorlin ever yet brought his bride from a tradesman's
house. You, the proudest of them all, will scarcely think of making such
an error, though it is true--"