obtained too powerful a hold upon him.

True, Barbara and her husband did everything in their power to make life
in their home pleasant; but he needed the tavern, and there either the
carousing was so noisy that it became too much for him, or people often
had very violent political discussions about liberty and faith, which he
only half understood, though they used the Flemish tongue. And the
Danube, the native air, the familiar faces! In short, he could not stay
with his children, though he dearly loved his little godson Conrad; and
it pleased him to see his daughter more yielding and ready to render
service than ever before, and to watch her husband, who, as the saying
went at home, "was ready to let her walk over him."

The husband's intention of making the unbending iron pliant was wholly
changed; the recruiting officer whom his companions and subordinates knew
and feared as one of the sternest of their number, showed himself to
Barbara the most yielding of men. The passionate tenderness with which
he loved her had only increased with time, and the stern soldier's
subjection to her will went so far that, even when he would gladly have
expressed disapproval, he usually omitted to do so, because he dreaded
to lessen the favour which she showed him in place of genuine love,
and which he needed. Besides, she gave him little cause for displeasure;
she did her duty, and strove to render his outward life a pleasant one.

Even after her father had left her she remained a wife who satisfied his
heart. He had learned the coolness of her nature in his first attempts
to woo her in Ratisbon and, as at that time, he whom the service
frequently detained from her for long periods regarded it as a merit.

So he wrote her father letters expressing his gratification, and the