“I wish it were otherwise,” sighed Wolff.  “You do not know how hard these times are, Els!  Nor how many thoughts beset my brain, since my father has placed me in charge of all his new enterprises.”

“Always something new,” replied Els, with a shade of reproach in her tone.  “What an omnivorous appetite this Eysvogel business possesses!  Ullmann Nutzel said lately:  ’Wherever one wants to buy, the bird—­ [vogel]—­has been ahead and snapped up everything in Venice and Milan.  And the young one is even sharper at a bargain,’ he added.”

“Because I want to make a warm nest for you, dearest,” replied Wolff.

“As if we were shopkeepers anxious to secure customers!” said the girl, laughing.  “I think the old Eysvogel house must have enough big stoves to warm its son and his wife.  At the Tuckers the business supports seven, with their wives and children.  What more do we want?  I believe that we love each other sincerely, and though I understand life better than Eva, to whom poverty and happiness are synonymous, I don’t need, like the women of your family, gold plates for my breakfast porridge or a bed of Levantine damask for my lapdog.  And the dowry my father will give me would supply the daughters of ten knights.”

“I know it, sweetheart,” interrupted Wolff dejectedly; “and how gladly I would be content with the smallest—­”

“Then be so!” she exclaimed cheerily.  “What you would call ’the smallest,’ others term wealth.  You want more than competence, and I—­the saints know-would be perfectly content with ‘good.’  Many a man has been shipwrecked on the cliffs of ‘better’ and ‘best.’”

Fired with passionate ardour, he exclaimed, “I am coming in now.”

“And the business?” she asked mischievously.  “Let it go as it will,” he answered eagerly, waving his hand.  But the next instant he dropped it again, saying thoughtfully:  “No, no; it won’t do, there is too much at stake.”

Els had already turned to send Katterle, the maid, to open the heavy house door, but ere doing so she put her beautiful head out again, and asked: 

“Is the matter really so serious?  Won’t the monster grant you even a good-night kiss?”

“No,” he answered firmly.  “Your menservants have gone, and before the maid could open——­There is the moon rising above the linden already.  It won’t do.  But I’ll see you to-morrow and, please God, with a lighter heart.  We may have good news this very day.”

“Of the wares from Venice and Milan?” asked Els anxiously.

“Yes, sweetheart.  Two waggon trains will meet at Verona.  The first messenger came from Ingolstadt, the second from Munich, and the one from Landshut has been here since day before yesterday.  Another should have arrived this morning, but the intense heat yesterday, or some cause—­at any rate there is reason for anxiety.  You don’t know what is at stake.”

“But peace was proclaimed yesterday,” said Els, “and if robber knights and bandits should venture——­But, no!  Surely the waggons have a strong escort.”