careful housekeeper, for he had steered clear of the rocks and shoals of matrimony—received his noble clients—awaited the grand duke’s commands, and reckoned his own weekly expenses every Saturday night. My entertainment on those great occasions consisted of the pedigrees, connections, and quarterings of the illustrious families whose marriage contracts and settlements he had drawn up, together with such shreds of court-gossip as my prudent cousin thought suitable for my age and position, which I heard with profound attention and treasured up for writing to Caroline. You perceive I had left my heart in Luneburg with a town-counsellor’s eldest daughter. The honest man was blessed with seven girls, but Caroline was the prettiest. We were not yet betrothed, but the affair had been in progress for some six months, partly winked at and partly encouraged by my father, because the town-counsellor had a respectable dowry for each of the seven, and Caroline’s godmother had left her a stock of plate and linen besides. Of course we had parted, with vows of eternal constancy, and a surprising number of letters passed between us, but one cannot live on letter-writing and dinners once a month. As I was allowed to make no acquaintances, and go seldom to public amusements, my mind naturally turned to taking notes of Frau Subert’s house and its inhabitants.
The Frau herself was a large grey-haired woman, with a face which might have been carved out of Baltic timber, it looked so solid and immoveable. Her daughter was her counterpart, some twenty years younger; her son was a masculine edition of them both, and served in a neighbouring shop, while they conducted domestic affairs. The nearest of my fellow-lodgers was a tall stooping man whom I never saw in any costume but a dressing gown and slippers. He had been a physician in high fashion when Brunswick formed part of the kingdom of Westphalia; but having come out strong for King Jerome and French domination, he lost place and practice when the province changed hands; lived quietly to escape police notice on a very small income saved out of the wreck of his good fortune, and being naturally an easy, intelligent man, I found him a pleasant, chatty companion. He was not in the list of proscribed acquaintances. Having taken the precaution to change his name, the doctor’s antecedents were matters unknown to my courtly cousin; he and I equally wanted somebody to converse with, and from our first meeting on the stair we became familiar friends. It was the doctor who first interested me in the lodgers above. They were two young students of my college. Collegium Carolinum is the proper name of the institution in which I matriculated. I had noticed them in the class-room, for both were singularly handsome, though of such different types that one could scarcely believe they were brothers, which they had stated they were. The eldest was a tall, powerful man—moulded like the Greek Hercules—with jet black hair, a beard to match, and a brave high spirit flashing at times from his eyes. The other was a slender youth, tall in proportion, but many an inch below his brother. His face and figure were cast in a mould too fine to be manly; he had a fair and delicate complexion, soft blue eyes, and hair the colour of the ripe corn.
There must have been six or seven years between their ages, yet the eldest did not look more than twenty-three, which is reckoned young in our northern Germany. They appeared in the college-roll as Henry and Hubert Hessing, natives of Hanover, but their accent was not of it or the adjoining provinces. Early in the preceding year they had come strangers to the city and matriculated. From that time their conduct had been so orderly and blameless—their application so steady and untiring—as to gain the special notice and praise of all the professors. They were advanced students, and both had taken honours, but in different departments. The eldest excelled in logic and mathematics,—the youngest in history and belles lettres; but my cousin might have set them before me as examples of avoiding acquaintances. Their fellow-students knew as little of them now as when they first came to college. They gave no offence, but declined all advances; even the Professors’ invitations—given by way of reward and encouragement—were modestly but decidedly refused. They were evidently satisfied with each other’s company, for no one ever saw them separate. In club, ball-room, or theatre, they were never seen, and seemed to have no amusement but taking long walks into the country and reading old books, for which they ransacked all the libraries in town.
There was something about the Hessings which kept impertinence at a distance. Sensible people concluded that such resolute reserve could spring only from pride, and left them to their chosen solitude. The doctor and I were solitary, too, but not from choice; the hum of talk or reading—the low laughter which came from their room as we sat by our evening fires, made us wish to know more of them. The doctor thought Frau Subert did—he had seen her show them extraordinary deference for lodgers in the third floor—and heard her speak in an earnest confidential tone to the eldest, but could never catch a word. One might as well hope to get intelligence out of the Holstein cheese she brought up every morning, as from Frau Subert. There was no getting the woman into a chat, beyond the state of the weather and the arrangements for breakfast and dinner, she had no coversation, and her daughter was, if possible, less communicative.
Nevertheless, we were to be acquainted. I had shown the Hessings’ sundry small civilities on the way to and from college, yet so as to let them see I did not mean to intrude; when, returning home one evening in the twilight, I heard somebody slip on the stair, and was just in time to stop the youngest of the steady students in a descent more rapid than safe. His brother was on the spot in a moment,—both thanked me, and I pressed them into my room to see if the boy was hurt. To my great surprise and pleasure they accepted the invitation. Hubert had got a slight scratch by coming in contact with one of the steps. It was a