and wished that all the debtors of his father might prove as punctual in their payments as this honest Unknown. The real state of the case never once occurred to him, and his gossipping assistant took care not to disclose her treachery; simply telling him that mother Brigitta had left off her lint trade.
His looking-glass soon told him, however, that a great change had taken place opposite during one night. The flower-pots had all vanished and the curtains were again close drawn before the window. Mela was rarely visible, and, when she appeared like the silvery moon breaking from behind the dark clouds of a stormy night, her looks were mournful, and he even thought he saw her wipe away a tear. This filled his heart with sorrow; and his lute, in soft lydian tones, expressed his sympathetic grief. He teazed himself to discover the cause of his sweetheart’s melancholy, but without success. A few days afterwards, he observed that his looking-glass was quite useless, as it no longer reflected the fair form of Mela. On going to examine the cause, he discovered that
