to be urging something upon her.  I should have entered, even though my life had been at stake.  You have no idea how awful it is to have no one to pour out one’s heart to, no one to look to for sympathy.  The old man, I knew very well, was angry with me, but I thought the girl would say a kind word to me.  But it turned out just the other way.  Barbara rose as I entered, looked at me haughtily, and went into the adjoining room, locking the door behind her.  The old man, however, shook hands with me, bade me sit down and consoled me, at the same time intimating that I was now a rich man and my own master.  He wanted to know how much I had inherited.  I couldn’t tell him.  He urged me to go to court about it, which I promised to do.  He was of the opinion that no fortune could be made in a chancery.  He then advised me to invest my inheritance in a business, assured me that gallnuts and fruit would yield a good profit and that a partner who understood this particular business could turn dimes into dollars, and said that he himself had at one time done well in that line.

“While he was telling me all this, he repeatedly called for the girl, who gave no sign of life, however, although it seemed to me as though I sometimes heard a rustling near the door.  But since she did not put in an appearance, and since the old man talked of nothing but money, I finally took my leave, the grocer regretting that he could not accompany me, as he was alone in the store.  I was grievously disappointed that my hopes had not been fulfilled, and yet I felt strangely consoled.  As I stopped in the street and looked over toward my father’s house, I suddenly heard a voice behind me saying in a subdued and indignant tone:  ‘Don’t be too ready to trust everybody; they’re after your money.’  Although I turned quickly, I saw no one.  Only the rattling of a window on the ground floor of the grocer’s house told me, even if I had not recognized the voice, that the secret warning had come from Barbara.  So she had overheard what had been said in the store!  Did she intend to warn me against her father?  Or had it come to her knowledge that immediately after my father’s death colleagues of the chancery as well as utter strangers had approached me with requests for support and aid, and that I had promised to help them as soon as I should be in possession of the money?  My promises I was obliged to keep, but I resolved to be more careful in future.  I applied for my inheritance.  It was less than had been expected, but still a considerable sum, nearly eleven thousand gulden.  The whole day my room was besieged by people demanding financial assistance.  I had almost become hardened, however, and granted a request only when the distress was really great.  Barbara’s father also came.  He scolded me for not having been around for three days, whereupon I truthfully replied that I feared I was unwelcome to his daughter.  But he told me with a malicious laugh that alarmed me, not to worry on that score; that he had brought her to her senses.  Thus reminded of Barbara’s warning, I concealed the amount of the inheritance when the subject came up in the course of the conversation and also skilfully evaded his business proposals.