written enough to prepare my partners there for a change in the administration of the office, and to defer for the present the proposed enlargement of our staff of clerks. The rest you can yourself explain from your own knowledge of the plans that I have in contemplation. Start on your journey as soon as possible-and understand that you are to say No positively, if Fritz proposes to accompany you. He is not to leave London without the express permission of his father.'

Fritz did propose to accompany me, the

moment he heard of my journey. I must own that I thought the circumstances excused him.

On the previous evening, we had consulted the German newspapers at the coffeehouse, and had found news from Würzburg

which quite overwhelmed my excitable

friend.

Being called upon to deliver their judgment, the authorities presiding at the legal inquiry into the violation of the seals and the loss of the medicine-chest failed to agree in opinion, and thus brought the investigation to a most unsatisfactory end. The moral effect of this division among the magistrates was unquestionably to cast a slur on the reputation of Widow Fontaine. She was not pronounced to be guilty-but she was also not declared to be innocent. Feeling, no doubt, that her position among her neighbours had now become unendurable, she and her daughter had left Würzburg. The newspaper narrative added that their departure had been privately accom

plished. No information could be obtained of the place of their retreat.

But for this last circumstance, I believe Fritz would have insisted on travelling with me. Ignorant in what direction to begin the search for Minna and her mother, he consented to leave me to look for traces of them in Germany, while he remained behind to inquire at the different foreign hotels, on the chance that they might have taken refuge in London.

The next morning I started for Frankfort.

My spirits were high as I left the shores of England. I had a young man's hearty and natural enjoyment of change. Besides, it flattered my self-esteem to feel that I was my aunt's business-representative; and I

was almost equally proud to be Fritz's confidential friend. Never could any poor

human creature have been a more innocent instrument of mischief in the hands of Destiny than I was, on that fatal journey. The day was dark, when the old weary way of travelling brought me at last to Frankfort. The unseen prospect, at the moment when I stepped out of the mail-post-carriage, was darker still.

CHAPTER IX.

I HAD just given a porter the necessary directions for taking my portmanteau to Mr. Keller's house, when I heard a woman's voice behind me asking the way to the Poste Restante-or, in our roundabout English phrase, the office of letters to be left till called for.

The voice was delightfully fresh and sweet, with an undertone of sadness, which made it additionally interesting. I did what most other young men in my place would have done I looked round directly.

Yes! the promise of the voice was