"Indeed!" said Sophia. "And will young Edward come too?"
"No," answered her father. "How comes he into your head?"
"I was only thinking," said Sophia, "that you might perhaps wish to make him some amends, by an invitation, for the disagreeable scene which he was forced to go through against your will in your house."
"To-day," replied the old gentleman, "would of all days be the least suitable, for the very man by whom the youth was affronted is to dine with us."
"Ay! he?" said the maid, with a lengthened tone.
"It looks as if you had a dislike to this stranger."
"An exceeding one," cried Sophia; "for in the first place, I cannot bear any body when one does not know exactly who he is; this incognito is a dear pleasure in a strange place, to make a man pass for something extraordinary when he has precisely nothing at all to conceal; and such is no doubt the case with this Unknown, who has all the appearance of a chamberlain or secretary out of place, and gave himself yesterday in your gallery the airs of a superintendent-general of all the missionary institutions."
"You said, in the first place; now then in the second place?" asked the father smiling.
"In the second place," said she laughing, "he is a horrid creature; and in the third place, he is intolerable; and in the fourth place, I hate him heartily."
"That is indeed first and last with you women," said the old man. "There will be besides my friend Erich, and the young painter Dietrich, and that strange creature Eulenböck."