Heaven be praised!" Then the girl recognised the recruiting officer and excellent dancer of whom she had just been thinking in connection with the velvet upper robe, and answered sharply: "Certainly it is I; but if you are really a nobleman, Sir Pyramus, take care that I am not exposed by your fault to evil gossip, and can not continue to hold my head erect as I now do." "Who will see us in this little dark street ?" he asked in low, persuasive tones.

"May all the saints guard me from assailing the honour of a modest maiden, fairest Barbara; yet, if you fear that I might prevent your remaining in the future what the favour of the Most High permits you to be, I shall rather accuse you of having inflicted upon me what you fear may befall you; for, since the last dance, I am really no longer myself, and can never become so until I have received from your beautiful lips the modest consolation for which this poor, tortured, loyal soul is yearning.

May I not linger at your side long enough to ask you one question, you severe yet ardently beloved maiden ?" "Certainly not," replied Barbara with repellent harshness.

"I never gave you a right to speak to me of love; but, above all, I shall not seek the sharer of a game of question and answer in the street." "Then name a place," he whispered with passionate ardour, trying meanwhile to clasp her hand, "where I may be permitted, in broad sunlight and before the eyes of the whole world, to say to you what robs me of rest by day and sleep by night.

Drop the cruel harshness which so strangely and painfully contradicts the language of your glances the evening of the last dance.