Elise looked at him inquiringly.  “Will you bid him, also, welcome?”

“That I will with all my heart!”

Elise approached the curtain, drew it back, and taking Bertram’s hand, led him to her father, saying, with indescribable grace:  “My father, bless your children.”

“This is your bridegroom?” asked Gotzkowsky, and for the first time a sunbeam seemed to flash across his face.

Bertram with a cry of delight drew Elise to his heart.  She clung to him, and said warmly:  “I will rest on your breast, Bertram.  I will be as true and as faithful as yourself.  You shall reconcile me to mankind.  You will make us both happy again.  My father and I put our hope in you, and we both know it will not be in vain.  Is it not so, my father?” She extended her hand to Gotzkowsky.

He took it, but was too much affected to speak.  He pressed it to his eyes and his breast, and then looked with a smile into the countenance of his daughter.

Elise continued:  “Look, father, life is still worth something.  It gives you a son, who is happy to share your unhappiness with you.  It gives you a daughter, who looks upon every tear of yours as a jewel in your crown; who would be proud to go as a beggar with her father from place to place, and say to all the world, ’Gotzkowsky is a beggar because he was rich in love toward his fellow-men; he has become poor because he was a noble man, who had faith in mankind.’” And as she drew her father into her own and Bertram’s embrace, she asked him, smiling through her tears, “My father, do you still wish to leave your children?”

“No, I will live—­live for you!” cried Gotzkowsky, as, almost overcome with emotion and pleasure, he threw his arms around their necks, and kissed them both warmly and lovingly.  “A new life is to begin for us,” said he, cheerfully.  “We will seek refuge in a quiet cottage, and take with us none of the show and luxury for which men work and sell their souls—­none of the tawdriness of life.  Will you not be content, Elise, to be poor, and purchase the honor of your father with the loss of this vain splendor?”

Elise leaned her head on his shoulder.  “I was poor,” she said, “when the world called me rich.  Now I am rich when it will call me poor.  Give up every thing that we possess, father, that no one may say Gotzkowsky owes him any thing, and has not kept his word.”  With ready haste she loosened the necklace from her throat, the bracelets from her arms, and the drops from her ears.  “Take these, too,” said she, smiling.  “Add them to the rest.  We will keep nothing but honor, and the consciousness of our probity.”

“Now I am your son, father,” cried Bertram, with beaming eyes.  “Now I have a right to serve you.  You dare no longer refuse to accept all that is mine for your own.  We will save the honor of our house, and pay all our creditors.”

“That we will do,” exclaimed Gotzkowsky; “I accept your offering, my son.”  And joining Elise and Bertram’s hands together, he cast grateful looks to heaven, saying:  “From this day forward we are poor, and yet far richer than many thousands of rich people; for we are of sound health, and have strong arms to work.  We have good consciences, and that proud contentment which God gives to those only who trust in His help.”