everything. He did not tell me straight out, but he told me this story:—
One of his friends in Germany loved a young girl. He was a clever merchant and a good fellow, but neither very amusing nor very interesting, just an everyday sort of person like me, for instance, he added with a smile. She was—then came a long, flattering description. Besides being very charming, she was a romantic little creature with exaggerated notions of life. It was therefore not to be wondered at that she let her merchant-cousin understand that his love was hopeless. She flew away from him, and she flew far. Then came the day he found her again wingshot and sorrowful. Her spirited flight had not brought her joy. Her pain hurt him more than if it had been his own, for he loved her still, and had never loved anybody else. He did not ask her to be his, for he feared to hurt her sick heart, but he tried to show her that she had no better friend in the world, and that his greatest happiness would be to take care of her. She understood him, and when some time had passed she came to him and told him that she had grown very fond of him. And now they are happy married merchant folk in a little German town.
When Erik had finished his story we were both rather embarrassed, and for some time neither of us spoke. We sat some time looking at each other, and I thought that after all he could not know everything. At last, therefore, I asked, 'Then the young German lady had been engaged to
