"Then she is poor!" thought Mr. Meyer. "Perhaps, therefore, all that Teresa said about her is not quite true?"
Perhaps she had loved some one, and accepted gifts from him. That was not such a great crime, surely, and it did not follow from that, that she
had sold herself. Those old spinsters, who have never experienced the world's primest joys, are so jealous of the diversions of young people.
"Hum! Then that bad girl speaks of me sometimes, eh?"
"She fancies your curse rests upon her. Since she departed——"
Here the conversation was again interrupted by a general outburst of weeping.
"Since she departed," continued Mrs. Meyer, "she has never risen from her bed, and leave it I know she never will, unless it is to be put into her cof-cof-coffin."
"Well, well, bring her home this afternoon," said Mr. Meyer, thoroughly softened at last.
At these words the whole family fell upon his neck and kissed and fondled him. Never was there a better man or a kinder father in the whole world, they said.
They scarce waited for the table to be cleared in order to deck out the worthy pater-familias in his best, and, putting a stick in his hand, the whole lot of them accompanied him to the Zuckermandel quarter, where Matilda lay in a poor garret, in which there was nothing, in the strictest sense of the word, but a bed and an innumerable quantity of medicine-bottles.