friend, my beloved, if you love me, if your children are dear to you, be cautious and prudent! Burn those terrible leaves, so that they may not testify against you. Remember that I should die of grief if your life should be threatened; remember that our poor children then would be helpless orphans."

"Oh, my poor, timid roe," said Palm, deeply moved, encircling his weeping young wife with his arms. "How your faithful, innocent heart is fluttering, as if the cruel hunter were already aiming his murderous arm at us, and as if we were irretrievably doomed! Calm yourself, dearest, I pledge you my word that I will comply with your wishes. We will burn the pamphlet; but previously you shall learn, at least, the spirit in which this pamphlet, for which your poor husband will have to suffer, perhaps, a few days' imprisonment, is written. Just listen to me! The author is speaking here of Bavaria, and of the oppressions to which she is a prey since we have concluded an alliance with France. He says: 'Since that time the Bavarian states have become the winter quarters, and been treated in a manner unheard of since the Thirty Years' War. At that time the Austrians, under Tilly and Wallenstein, were pursuing precisely the same course now followed by the French, and if their emperor draws no other lessons from that war, he has closely copied, at least, the system of obtaining supplies for an army which was then in use. Trustworthy men have assured us that the French ruler, when in Munich the most urgent remonstrances concerning the oppressions under which the people of Bavaria were groaning were made to him, replied in cold blood: "My soldiers have not done so. These are times of war--let me alone, and do not disturb my plans." Already in December last the treaty of Presburg was signed, and from that moment Austria had the prospect of getting rid of her enemies. Had Bavaria not an equal right to enjoy the advantages of this treaty? These advantages could be none other than that the French army left the Bavarian territories and relieved the people from further oppressions. But just the reverse took place. The French withdrew from the states of the German emperor to occupy Bavaria, and celebrate here, by the ruin of all the inhabitants, their victories in orgies and carousals continued for many months. If I refer to the ruin of the inhabitants, the words should be taken in their literal meaning, and not as an expression merely chosen to depict the misery the French have brought upon Bavaria. It is not yet five years since a hostile army of the same nation lorded it over that country. And nobody will venture to assert that the wounds then inflicted upon the inhabitants should have been healed in so short a time. The farmer, deprived of his animals, had scarcely commenced to provide himself again with horses and cattle, when the passage of the French, in every respect equal to an invasion, took from him again this important portion of his personal property. Fraud, cunning, and force were alternately resorted to for this purpose. Tears and the most humble supplications were rejected with sneers, and even blows. The French called themselves "preservers of Bavaria." Forsooth a preservation similar to the fate of the patient whom one doctor would have sooner sent into the grave, and who is dying more slowly under the hands of another. If friendship ever was a mockery, it was so on this occasion. But it is part of Napoleon's plans to exhaust Germany to such an extent as to render her incapable of becoming dangerous for him even in the most remote future. He selected several highly effective expedients for this purpose. Dynasties, the ancestors of which date back to the most remote ages, and one of which long since produced emperors and kings, were united with Bonaparte's family by the closest ties of blood, and thus the ruler of France has already become the relative of the courts of Baden, Bavaria, Sweden, and Russia. Not content with this, he offered royal crowns to Bavaria and Wurtemberg, and the German emperor had to assent to this measure in the treaty of Presburg. Thus Germany has got two new kingdoms, and--'" [Footnote: From the celebrated pamphlet. "Germany in her Deepest Degradation."]

"Oh, I implore you, do not read any further," exclaimed Anna, suddenly interrupting her husband. "It frightens me to hear you repeat those threatening and angry words; they fall upon my heart like a terrible accusation against you! Believe me, my beloved, if that proud and ambitious Emperor Napoleon should hear of this terrible pamphlet--if its contents should be communicated to him, you would be lost: for, having no one else on whom to wreak his vengeance, he would revenge himself on you!"

"But he will not have me either," said Palm, smiling, "for I shall take good care not to set foot on French territory; I shall not leave Nuremberg, and thank God, that is German territory."

"But the French frontier is close to us, for wherever there are French troops there is France. Napoleon's arm reaches far beyond her frontiers, and if he wants to seize you he will do so in spite of all boundary-posts, German laws, and your own citizenship."

"There is really something so convincing in your fears that it might almost infect me!" said Palm, musingly. "It would have been better, perhaps, after all, for me not to have come back, but to remain in Prussian Erlangen!"

"Return thither," exclaimed Anna, imploringly; "I beseech you by our love, by our children, and by our happiness, return to Erlangen!"

"To-morrow, dearest Anna!" said Palm, smiling, clasping his young wife in his arms--" to-morrow it will be time enough to think of another separation. Now let me take a few hours' rest, and enjoy the unutterable happiness of being at home again!--at home with my wife and with my dear little ones!"

CHAPTER LVI.

THE ARREST.

On the following morning the rumor spread all over Nuremberg, that Palm, the bookseller, had returned and was concealed in his house. The cook had stated this in the strictest confidence to some of her friends when she had appeared on the market-place to purchase some vegetables. The friends had communicated the news, of course, likewise in the strictest confidence, to other persons, and thus the whole city became very soon aware of the secret.

The friends of the family now hastened to go to Mrs. Palm for the purpose of ascertaining from herself whether the information were true. Anna denied it, however; she asserted she had received this very morning a letter written by her husband at Erlangen; but when one of the more importunate friends requested her to communicate the contents of the letter to him, or let him see it at least, she became embarrassed and made an evasive reply.

"He is here!" whispered the friends to each other, when they left Mrs. Anna Palm. "He is here, but conceals himself so that the French spies who have been sneaking around here for the last few days may not discover his whereabouts. It is prudent for him to do so, and we will not betray him, but faithfully keep his secret."

But a secret of which a whole city is aware, and which is being talked of by all the gossips in town, is difficult to keep, and it is useless to make any effort for the purpose of preventing it from being betrayed to the enemy.

Palm did not suspect any thing whatever of what was going on. He deemed himself entirely safe in his wife's peaceful, silent room, the windows of which, opening upon the garden, were inaccessible to spying eyes, while its only door led to the large store where his two clerks were attending to the business of the firm and waiting on the customers who ordered or purchased books of them.

Anna had just left the room to consult with her servants about the affairs of the household and kitchen; and Palm, who was comfortably stretched out on the sofa, was engaged in reading. The anxiety which had rendered him so restless during the previous days had left him again; he felt perfectly reassured, and smiled at his own fear which had flitted past him like a threatening cloud.

All at once he was startled from his comfortable repose by a loud conversation in the store, and rose from the divan in order to hear what was the matter.

"I tell you I am unable to assist you," he heard his book-keeper say. "I am poor myself, and Mr. Palm is not at home."

"Mr. Palm is at home, and I implore you let me see him," said a strange, supplicating voice. "He has a generous heart and if I tell him of my distress he will pity me and lend me his assistance."

"Come back in a few days, then," exclaimed the book-keeper; "Mr. Palm will then be back, perhaps, from his journey."

"In a few days!" ejaculated the strange voice--"in a few days my wife and child will be starved to death, for unless I am able to procure relief within this hour, my cruel creditor will have me taken to the debtors' prison, and I shall be unable then to assist my sick wife and baby. Oh, have mercy on my distress! Let me see Mr. Palm, that I may implore his assistance!"

"Mr. Palm is not at home as I told you already," exclaimed the book- keeper in an angry voice. "How am I to let you see him, then? Come back in a few days--that is the only advice I can give you. Go now, and do not disturb me any longer!"

"No, people shall never say that I turned a despairing man away from my door," muttered Palm, rapidly crossing the room and opening the door of the store.

"Stay, poor man," he said to the beggar, who had already turned around and was about to leave the store--"stay."

The beggar turned around, and, on perceiving Palm, who stood on the threshold of the door, uttered a joyful cry.

"Do you see," he said, triumphantly to the book-keeper--" do you see that I was right? Mr. Palm is at home, and will help me."

"I will help you if I can," said Palm, kindly. "What does your debt amount to?"

"Ah, Mr. Palm, I owe my landlord a quarter's rent, amounting to twenty florins. But if you should be so generous as to give me half that sum, it would be enough, for the landlord has promised to wait three months, provided I paid him now ten florins."

"You shall have the ten florins," said Palm. "Mr. Bertram, pay this man ten florins, and charge them to me."

"Oh, Mr. Palm, how kind you are!" exclaimed the beggar, joyfully. "How shall I ever be able to thank you for what you have done for me