rigid in the last attitude that it had dictated.

Sebastian did not notice that the door was open and all the guests
were waiting for him to lead the way.

"Now, old dreamer," whispered Desiree, with a quick pinch on his
arm, "take the Grafin upstairs to the drawing-room and give her
wine. You are to drink our healths, remember."

"Is there wine?" he asked with a vague smile. "Where has it come
from?"

"Like other good things, my father-in-law," replied Charles with his
easy laugh, "it comes from France."

They spoke together thus in confidence, in the language of that same
sunny land. But when Sebastian turned again to the old lady, still
recalling the details of that other wedding, he addressed her in
German, offering his arm with a sudden stiffness of gesture which he
seemed to put on with the change of tongue.

They passed up the low time-worn steps arm-in-arm, and beneath the
high carved doorway, whereon some pious Hanseatic merchant had
inscribed his belief that if God be in the house there is no need of
a watchman, emphasizing his creed by bolts and locks of enormous
strength, and bars to every window.

The servant in her Samland Sunday dress, having shaken her fist at
the children, closed the door behind the last guest, and, so far as
the Frauengasse was concerned, the exciting incident was over. From