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XXVI

hilip had spent three months in Heidelberg when one
Pmorning the Frau Professor told him that an English-
man named Hayward was coming to stay in the house, and
the same evening at supper he saw a new face. For some days
the family had lived in a state of excitement. First, as the
result of heaven knows what scheming, by dint of humble
prayers and veiled threats, the parents of the young English-
man to whom Fraulein Thekla was engaged had invited her
to visit them in England, and she had set off with an album
of water colours to show how accomplished she was and a
bundle of letters to prove how deeply the young man had
compromised himself. A week later Fraulein Hedwig with
radiant smiles announced that the lieutenant of her affec-
tions was coming to Heidelberg with his father and mother.
Exhausted by the importunity of their son and touched by
the dowry which Fraulein Hedwig’s father offered, the lieu-
tenant’s parents had consented to pass through Heidelberg
to make the young woman’s acquaintance. The interview
was satisfactory and Fraulein Hedwig had the satisfaction
of showing her lover in the Stadtgarten to the whole of Frau
Professor Erlin’s household. The silent old ladies who sat at
the top of the table near the Frau Professor were in a flutter,
and when Fraulein Hedwig said she was to go home at once
for the formal engagement to take place, the Frau Profes-

1 Of Human Bondage