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150 inherited the Crœsus' firm, really had nothing to do but to collect the princely dividends and keep growing richer and richer till he beat all records. That's the way things have gone."

"And he has a daughter, has he, Jettchen? What's she like?"

"Yes, Ditlinde, his wife is dead, but he has a daughter, Miss Spoelmann, and he's bringing her with him. She's a wonderful girl from all I've read about her. He himself is a bit of a mixture, for his father married a wife from the South—Creole blood, the daughter of a German father and native mother. But Samuel in his turn married a German-American of half-English blood, and their daughter is now Miss Spoelmann."

"Gracious, Jettchen, she's a creature of many colours!"

"You may well say so, Ditlinde, and she's clever, so I've heard; she studies like a man—algebra, and puzzling things of that sort."

"Hm, that too doesn't attract me much."

"But now comes the cream of the business, Ditlinde, for Miss Spoelmann has a lady-companion, and that lady-companion is a countess, a real genuine countess, who dances attendance on her.

"Gracious!" said Ditlinde, "she ought to be ashamed of herself. No, Jettchen, my mind is made up. I'm not going to bother myself about Spoelmann. I'm going to let him drink his waters and go, with his countess and his algebraical daughter, and am not going so much as to turn my head to look at him. He and his riches make no impression on me. What do you think, Klaus Heinrich?"

Klaus Heinrich looked past Jettchen's head at the bright window.

"Impression?" he said.&hellip;" No, riches make no impression on me, I think—I mean, riches in the ordinary way. But it seems to me that it depends &hellip; it depends, I