Shrugging his shoulders wearily as he spoke, he nodded a farewell and
left the house.

Four bearers were waiting outside with the sedan-chair, three servants
with torches, and two stout attendants carrying clubs over their
shoulders. All wore costly liveries of the Eysvogel colours, and when
their master had taken his seat in the gilded conveyance and the men
lifted it, Els heard a weaver's wife, who lived near by, say to her
little boy: "That's the rich Herr Eysvogel, Fritzel. He has as much
money to spend every hour as we have in a whole year, and he is a very
happy man."




CHAPTER II.

Els went back into the house.

The repulse which she had just received caused her bitter sorrow. Her
father was right. Herr Casper had treated her kindly from a purely
selfish motive. She herself was nothing to him.

But there was so much for her to do that she found little time to grieve
over this new trouble.

Eva was praying in the death-chamber for the soul of the beloved dead
with some of the nuns from the convent, who had lost in her mother a
generous benefactress.