the weather was very cold. A girl came up and asked me if I would drink a
glass of wine.

"No," said I; and on the question being repeated, repeated the
monosyllable somewhat rudely. The girl stood still and began to laugh,
and I was about to turn angrily away when she said,--

"I see you do not remember me?"

I looked at her attentively, and at last I discovered beneath her
unusually ugly features the lineaments of Anna Midel, the maid in the
engraver's house.

"You remind me of Anna Midel," said I.

"Alas, I was Anna Midel once. I am no longer an object fit for love, but
that is your fault."

"Mine?"

"Yes; the four hundred florins you gave me made Count Fugger's coachman
marry me, and he not only abandoned me but gave me a disgusting disease,
which was like to have been my death. I recovered my health, but I never
shall recover my good looks."

"I am very sorry to hear all this; but tell me what has become of
Gertrude?"

"Then you don't know that you are going to a ball at her house to-night?"