"'Perhaps,' said Severin, laying his pipe on the table, and looking reflectively before him with his arms crossed; 'but could those silent, affecting funereal observances--those resigned regrets, heard only in her own heart, for the unfaithful scoundrel--have existed in any but a deep and tender nature, which must have been a stranger to the worldly infirmities which you accuse your aunt of? No doubt the bitter feeling--(how seldom can we altogether master it, hard beset as we are in this life of ours?)--may sometimes have manifested itself in her in various forms, not always very easily recognizable, and having a more or less unpleasant effect upon the old lady's surroundings; still, that yearly day of pious sorrow would have atoned, in my eyes, at all events, for any amount of shortcomings during the rest of the time.'

"'I agree with you, Severin,' said Marzell. 'The old lady can't have been quite so bad as Alexander--though only from hearsay--makes her out to have been; at the same time I must confess I don't like to have anything to do with folks who have had their lives embittered, and it's better that Alexander should edify himself with the story of the old lady's way of keeping her wedding-day (that ought to have been), and rummage in the well-filled boxes and chests she has left him, or gloat over the valuable "inventory," than that he should see the deserted bride, dressed for the altar, walking up and down beside her chocolate-table.'

"Alexander set the coffee-cup which he was raising to his lips down untasted on the table with a clatter; beat his hands together, and cried, 'For Heaven's sake don't put ideas of that sort into my head! Really I feel in that state that it wouldn't astonish me if I were to see my old aunt in h