When the burgomaster had left the room, Henrica said: 

“How quickly, and how differently from what I expected, all this has happened.  I love you.  I am under obligations to you, but to be imprisoned, imprisoned.  The walls will press upon me, the ceiling will seem like a weight.  I don’t know whether I ought to rejoice or despair.  You have great influence with the Junker.  Tell him about Anna, touch his heart, and if he would go, it would really be best for us both.”

“You mean for you and your sister,” replied Maria with a repellent gesture of the hand.  “There is the lamp.  When the Junker comes, we shall see each other again.”

Maria went to her room and threw herself on the couch, but soon rose and paced restlessly to and fro.  Then stretching out her clasped hands, she exclaimed: 

“Oh, if he would only go, if he would only go!  Merciful God!  Kind, gracious Father in Heaven, grant him every happiness, every blessing, but save my peace of mind; let him go, and lead him far, far away from here.”

CHAPTER XXV.

The tavern where Georg von Dornburg lodged stood on the “broad street,” and was a fine building with a large court-yard, in which were numerous vehicles.  On the left of the entrance was a large open room entered through a lofty archway.  Here the drivers and other folk sat over their beer and wine, suffering the innkeeper’s hens to fly on the benches and even sometimes on the table, here vegetables were cleaned, boiled and fried, here the stout landlady was frequently obliged to call her sturdy maid and men servants to her aid, when her guests came to actual fighting, or some one drank more than was good for him.  Here the new custom of tobacco-smoking was practised, though only by a few sailors who had served on Spanish ships—­but Frau Van Aken could not endure the acrid smoke and opened the windows, which were filled with blooming pinks, slender stalks of balsam, and cages containing bright-plumaged goldfinches.  On the side opposite to the entrance were two closed rooms.  Above the door of one, neatly carved in wood, were the lines from Horace: 

              “Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes. 
               Angulus ridet.”

[Of all the corners of the world,
There is none that so charms me.]

Only a few chosen guests found admittance into this long, narrow apartment.  It was completely wainscoted with wood, and from the centre of the richly-carved ceiling a strange picture gleamed in brilliant hues.  This represented the landlord.  The worthy man with the smooth face, firmly-closed lips, and long nose, which offered an excellent straight line to its owner’s burin, sat on a throne in the costume of a Roman general, while Vulcan and Bacchus, Minerva and Poinona, offered him gifts.  Klaus Van Aken, or as he preferred to be called, Nicolaus Aquanus, was a singular man, who had received good gifts from