`I can find you, I believe, a purchaser,' he said, `and one who would continue to avail himself of your skill.'

`Can you, sir, indeed?' said the old man. `Well, I shall be heartily obliged; for I begin to find a man may practise resignation all his days, as he takes physic, and not come to like it in the end.'

`If you will have the papers drawn, you may even burthen the purchase with your interest,' said Otto. `Let it be assured to you through life.'

`Your friend, sir,' insinuated Killian, `would not, perhaps, care to make the interest reversible? Fritz is a good lad.'

`Fritz is young,' said the Prince dryly; `he must earn consideration, not inherit.'

`He has long worked upon the place, sir,' insisted Mr. Gottesheim; `and at my great age, for I am seventy- eight come harvest, it would be a troublesome thought to the proprietor how to fill my shoes. It would be a care spared to assure yourself of Fritz. And I believe he might be tempted by a permanency.'

`The young man has unsettled views,' returned Otto.

`Possibly the purchaser -- ' began Killian.

A little spot of anger burned in Otto's cheek. `I am the purchaser,' he said.

`It was what I might have guessed,' replied the farmer, bowing with an aged, obsequious dignity. `You have made an old man very happy; and I may say, indeed, that I have entertained an angel unawares. Sir, the great people of this world -- and by that I mean those who are great in station -- if they had only hearts like yours, how they would make the fires burn and the poor sing!'

`I would not judge them hardly, sir,' said Otto. `We all have our frailties.'

`Truly, sir,' said Mr. Gottesheim, with unction. `And by what name, sir, am I to address my generous landlord?'

The double recollection of an English traveller, whom he had received the week before at court, and of an old English rogue called Transome, whom he had known in youth, came pertinently to the Prince's help. `Transome,' he answered, `is my name. I am an English traveller. It is, to-day, Tuesday. On Thursday, before noon, the money shall be ready. Let us meet, if you please, in Mittwalden, at the "Morning Star."'

`I am, in all things lawful, your servant to command,' replied the farmer. `An Englishman! You are a great race of travellers. And has your lordship some experience of land?'

`I have had some interest of the kind before,' returned the Prince; `not in Gerolstein, indeed. But fortune, as you say, turns the wheel, and I desire to be beforehand with her revolutions.'

`Very right, sir, I am sure,' said Mr. Killian.

They had been strolling with deliberation; but they were now drawing near to the farmhouse, mounting by the trellised pathway to the level of the meadow. A little before them, the sound of voices had been some while audible, and now grew louder and more distinct with every step of their advance. Presently, when they emerged upon the top of the bank, they beheld Fritz and Ottilia some way off; he, very black and bloodshot, emphasising his hoarse speech with the smacking of his fist against his palm; she, standing a little way off in blowsy, voluble distress.

`Dear me!' said Mr. Gottesheim, and made as if he would turn aside.