"Aunt means it kindly," said Reinhold, half making an excuse for her. "It was rather astounding for me at first----" he stopped.
"To be received with one of my reviews," added the Doctor. "Oh, your aunt often does me the honour of reproducing my articles, although certainly sometimes on rather unsuitable occasions and with her own variations, for which I do not undertake the responsibility; for instance, with the 'higher spheres' I have usually nothing to do."
Reinhold smiled. "Time has left no marks upon you, Doctor; you still preserve your old role. Every third word you utter, is one of sarcasm."
"Pretty well," said "Welding, shrugging his shoulders, and turning to Ella, who greeted the old friend heartily as she stretched out her hand to him.
"Well, how do you find our Eleonore?" cried the Consul, triumphantly. "Does she not bloom like a rose? And the 'little one' has become so big that we must soon seek another designation for him."
Dr. Welding smiled, and this time, as an exception, without any maliciousness, while he replied, "Frau Eleonore has remained just like herself. That is the best compliment which one can pay her. Certainly, dear madam, I am not the last who will rejoice at this meeting, and also that the Erlau drawing-rooms, at any rate for the next few weeks, will stand again under your sceptre. Between ourselves," he lowered his voice, "it becomes sometimes rather serious when your aunt takes the lead in conversations on art."
The excitement and pleasure of meeting had made the arrivals only retire to rest very late. The morning sun was shining clearly and brightly in at the windows, when Ella entered the apartment which had been her sitting and work-room during her residence in the Erlau's house. It still displayed all the former costly furniture with which Erlau had surrounded his favourite. Reinhold was there already; he stood at the window, and looked down upon the streets of his native town, which he now visited for the first time after nearly ten years' absence. It was no longer the young composer who, in obstinate struggle with his surroundings and family, destroyed his fetters as well as his duties, so as to throw himself into a course which promised him fame and love, and which attained both by force; but neither was it the Rinaldo, whose wild, social life in Italy, had so often challenged the world's condemnation, which appeared to know no other bridle, no other law than his own personal will, and to whom the admiration on the part of the public and all around him, threatened to become so ruinous. There lay nothing more in his manner of haughty overbearing or wounding brusqueness, only that quiet self-consciousness was displayed, which showed to the advantage of the man as well as of the composer. In his eye still flashed some of the old passion, which had formed Rinaldo's peculiar element in life as in his works; but the wild, unsteady flame which once burned in this glance was extinguished, and what now beamed there was better suited to the quiet, rather sombre expression of his features. Whatever a wild, surging life might have buried in this countenance, it spoke now only of what it had conquered; and the dreamy, thoughtful gaze which at this moment was seeking the gable of the old house in Canal Street, where it arose plainly from amidst the confusion of houses, was quite that of the former Reinhold--of that Reinhold who, in the small, narrow garden-house, had sat so often before his piano, and called forth those tones which then might only be raised in the night if he did not wish to be upbraided for the "useless phantasies" which the world now called the outpourings of his genius.
Ella drew near her husband. Her appearance, indeed, justified the Consul's declaration, she bloomed like a rose. The last three years had robbed this charming figure of none of its grace, but instead had given her an expression of happiness in which she had once been wanting.
"Have you received letters so early?" asked she, pointing to two open writings which lay on the table.
Reinhold smiled--