fascinated you. You are no longer the same sensible pleasant lad that you were. The Fraulein notices it also. She says she does not know what is come over you. I tell her that all young men are fools."

I did not deign to answer the good old man, but left him with my nose in the air. Indeed, I seemed to tread on air. I thought of nothing but palacegardens and Hyrcanian woods full of terrible delights and secret pleasures. I believed myself to be altogether separate from my fellows, and to be reserved for some supreme exceptional fate. I am not willing to dwell longer than I can help upon this period, the remembrance of which is most distasteful to me. I shall have to describe at some length the supreme and crowning act of folly, and this must suffice the reader.

But in simple honesty, and to relieve my own conscience by public confession, I must relate one incident, so fatuous and unworthy was it, so nobly and graciously forgiven and condoned. I had not been to Herr Veitch for many days; but, one morning, an unconquerable impulse forced me to visit him. I believe that I was impelled, with all my assumed scepticism, to seek more tidings of the Prince von Schongau and his reported espousals. I had quite lost count of the Fraulein's mornings, and, indeed, I am ashamed to say, that I had ceased to think of her. I was therefore somewhat chagrined when, on entering the room, I found myself in her presence, as well as in that of Herr Veitch. manner must have been singularly constrained and boorish, and I could see that the master regarded me with disapproval, not to say contempt. In spite of my affected indifference, I could see that Adelheid was watching me with wistful and pitiful eyes. Some evil demon made my heart harder and more scornful than ever; and I conceived the most hateful and injurious thoughts against one whose sweetness and devotion ought, on the contrary, to have filled me with affec

My

tionate devotion. I played badly, and this only increased my spiteful and angry mood. So violent did my passion and an evil conscience at last make me, that I threw down my violin in a fit of ungovernable temper and rushed out of the room. I wandered restlessly about the streets for some time, in a kind of frenzy against mankind in general, my mind filled with the image of the Princess, and with a sense of intolerable wrong that my exceptional fortune was not recognised by all the world,— so confident was I in my infatuation. At last it suddenly occurred to me to go to the theatre, where, the Frau- . lein had said, the royal family were expected to be present. Lost in the crowded and enthusiastic audience, which would doubtless fill the place -the report of the betrothal being spread throughout the city-I might see the Princess and indulge a secret sense of my exclusive fate.

When I entered the theatre at the bottom of the Peterstrasse, however, I found a rumour already current that the King was not well and could not be present, and that the Princess refused to come without him, Whether the strange Crown Prince would visit the theatre alone, no one seemed to pretend to know.

I shall remember that evening as long as I live. The little old-fashioned theatre, as I know now it must have been, so different from the great theatres I have since seen at Dresden and Berlin, seemed to me, then, to be the most gorgeous of pleasure-places, blazing with lights and crowded with what was to me a gay and brilliant throng of superbly dressed and ornamented people. I found a vacant place in the pit near the orchestra. When I entered the curtain had not risen, but the orchestra were playing. The band consisted mostly of violins, and would, no doubt, be considered poor and thin at the present day, but such music has, to my mind, a subtle, delicate tone which is missed now. I did not know what the over

ture was, and curiously enough I have never heard it again: probably it was some local composition; but there is sounding in my ears, as I write, the simple, thrilling air, the repeating chords. The music ceased and the curtain rose.

His

Up to this time the royal box op posite the stage had remained empty, and the audience had manifested a restless impatience which paid no attention to anything, either in the orchestra or upon the stage; but the actors had hardly begun their parts when the attention, which was now being attracted towards them, was suddenly diverted in another direction, and a young distinguished-looking man entered the royal box. breast was a mass of stars and orders, and the rest of his apparel was covered with embroidery and lace; but his tall, slight figure, and the careless selfrespect of his manner, enabled him to support so much finery with success. He came down without pause to the front of the box and remained standing, while the actors, dropping their parts, sang a verse of the National Folk-song, accompanied by the audience and supported by the band.

The

Prince bowed once slightly, then stood quite still, facing the enthusiastic house. From his point of view, doubtless, he saw a waving sea of faces, tumultuous, indistinguishable, indistinct; but in my eyes and to my thought, as I stood lost in the tossing, excitable crowd about me, there was no one in the whole theatre but myself and him. As I looked at him, a wild antagonism, an insane confidence and desire to pit myself against him, took possession of me. My folly even went so far as to picture to my mind a lovely, broken-hearted creature, bound to a betrothal odious to her, stretching out her hand her hand towards another fate. The Prince had sat down in his box, slightly wearied in his daily round of life, not expecting very much entertainment from the play; more pleased, perhaps, at the gay scene the crowded theatre itself

presented to his eyes, perfectly un aware, certainly, of the ferocious glances one of the audience in a remote corner was directing towards his unconscious person.

I spent the ensuing night and day in a fever of passionate excitement; but on the next afternoon an event occurred which reduced every other consideration to worthlessness, and exaggerated the delirium from which I suffered to the highest pitch. On my return to the Three Roses from attending a lecture of the University for I did attend lectures sometimes I found a royal footman waiting for me with a note from the Princess. The world seemed to swim before my eyes as I took the billet from the man. It had been given him by the Princess herself, he said, who had charged him to deliver it to no one but myself.

I opened the billet and read: "The Princess Cynthia will be in Das Vergnügen, on the terrace above the cascades, this evening at eleven o'clock. She wishes to see Herr von Saale there without fail."

Even in the state of exaltation in which I had lived for some days, I could scarcely believe my senses. Yet there could be no possible doubt that the message was a genuine one. The billet was distinguished from ordinary letters by its paper, and was closed with a massive seal bearing the royal arms.

To this moment it is a mystery to me how I passed the intervening hours from the time the man left me till eleven o'clock. I know that at the time the thought of this necessity overwhelmed me with despair. I have some misty recollection of wandering down the valley by the river, of gibbering passing forms which with intolerable intrusion seemed to force themselves between me and the only conceivable event towards which all human history had been tending since the world began.

The garden of Das Vergnügen was

defended against intrusion by natural boundaries, very slightly assisted by art. The valley on the palace-side was impregnable, and the steep, rocky, wooded slopes on the further side of the river were so inclosed at the top as to render intrusion difficult or impossible. The right of entrée was given me through my connection with the Professor and the Fraulein, and I had no difficulty in obtaining it on this momentous night.

Mysterious shadows, dark and vast under the pale moonlight, the great trees and banks of leaves, rose in strange distinct outline on every side, as I made my way through the lawns and garden-walks. The nightingales were singing all around. me: the festoons of roses, robbed of all colour by the pallid light, hung like the ruined garlands of a dead festival, and sheets of clematis fell like cascades from the tall hedges and forest-trees, and filled the air with a stifling perfume that presaged decay. Every now and again a strange whispering music stole through the valley and along the wooded slopes, the echo of wind-harps and harmonicawires concealed among the terraces and groves. As the night advanced and the moon sank lower in the sky, the starlight grew more intense, with a clear distinct light, in which the sharp dark outlines of the shadows stood out in weird contrast with the beauty which, even in the moment of startled terror, the heart felt to be around. The wayward music that strayed through the leaves, and the fine clear notes of the nightingales that harmonised in their high shrill octaves with the cold silver light in which valley and river and stone terrace lay in mystic unreality, seemed like a fatal spell to enslave my spirit, a ghostly melody, a pale, beckoning hand to entice me on. And it was not only that these sights and sounds of a pallid and even terrifying beauty lured me on, but my infatuation was so perfect that I traversed the lawns and

terraces in the full expectation of finding at the trysting-place the most lovely, the most unique of creatures, a creature born to be the possession and the delight of her own race and kind, and of such only, to whom it would seem presumption and treason for any other even to look. Long years afterwards, writing in the cool blood of middle life, the remembrance of this folly makes me shiver with an intolerable shame; but at the moment, so potent was the wizard spell that untamed, unquestioning youth and the wild, romantic woodteaching, and the autumnal music of the winds, and the well-spring of fresh hope and love and trust, bursting out like a clear fountain amid the flowering grass and woodland singers, had cast about my path that, as I passed the terraces and the arcades of roses and clematis, I believed confidently that in another moment I should have the Princess, blushing, shy, palpitating, in my arms.

I turned a terraced corner bordered with statues and urns, and shaded with tall yew and holly hedges that grew high up in the woods. I came upon a broad and long terrace, shining in the clear light. On the left hand, far above me, from the mountain summit a single broad cascade fell, like a wall of flashing molten silver, sudden and straight into a deep pool, from which by several outlets, formed by the piers of the terrace-bridge upon which I stepped, it fell again, in four or five cascades of far greater depth, into the valley beneath.

The moon, which was setting a little behind me, cast a full and strong light upon the broad terrace-a light as bright as day. As I turned the corner my heart almost ceased to beat, for I saw, not a dozen yards from me, the Princess herself coming forward to as it seemed with outstretched hands. The bright light revealed in perfect distinctness the soft, gracious outline of her slight figure and the shy expression of her face. I made a step forward, my

meet me,

heart leaping to my mouth, when suddenly it sank again with a sickening chill, for behind the Princess, only a few steps apart, was the strange Crown-Prince, and close to him stood another figure, which I also recognised

at once.

The Princess came forward with her faint, bewitching smile.

"You are here, Herr von Saale," she said: "I knew you would not fail. We are an awkward number for a moonlight stroll, and I wanted a companion for the Fraülein."

A sickening sense of self-recognised, self-detected folly-folly too gross and palpable, it might be feared, to escape even the detection of others,-crushed me to the earth.

What would have happened, what inconceivably fatal folly I might have committed, I cannot tell-a mad whirl of insane thought rushed through my mind; but the Princess kept her steady eyes fixed full upon mine. "Herr von Saale," they said, as plainly as, ay, plainer than words could speak,-"Otto von Saale, I believe in you. You have taught me something that I never knew before. You have taught me what I am, and you have shown me what I may become. You yourself, surely, will not fail."

The steady, speaking eyes, calm in the pale white light-the intense, over-mastering power and thought drew me out of myself, as at the evening-concert at the palace; but now, thanks to the purpose and command that spoke in them, with a fortifying help and strength. The boyish nature, fascinated and uplifted even in the depths of its folly and shame, rose-thanks to her,-in some sense equal to the pressing need. Surely she must be right. Behind Otto von Saale, the fool, there must be another Otto von Saale who would not fail.

Something of what was passing in my mind, rose, I suppose, into my eyes, for the expression of the Princess's face changed, and an inexpressibly beautiful look came into her eyes,

amid the quaint reserve which her rank and disposition gave to her habitual look. It seemed to speak, with a start of grateful joy at the sudden gift, of certain abiding faith-faith in herself and in me-faith in the full, pure notes of life's music, which they who are born of the spirit, in the turmoil of the world's passion and desire, alone can hear.

The Princess turned away very quietly towards the Crown Prince. "You remember Herr von Saale the other evening?" she said, and His Royal Highness bowed.

They moved together towards the other end of the terrace, and I approached Adelheid.

It may be thought that I must have found some difficulty and confusion in speaking to her; but, strange as it may appear, it was not so. It seemed to me as though the demon of vanity and folly had been completely exorcised, as though the courage and faith that shone upon me from the Princess's eyes had blotted out and effaced the miserable, infatuated past as though it had never been. It is given to some natures, at some propitious moments at the turning-points of life, by a happy acquiescence in right doing to obliterate the evil past. The intolerable sense of disgrace and shame had, as it were, stung the lower, vain reptile-self through its vital cord, and it lay dead and withered in the way. The flattering mask was torn from its features, and Lothing was left but a shudder at the memory of a creature so contemptible and vile.

I told Adelheid that I did not know how to excuse my conduct of the last few days, that some demon seemed to have possessed me, that Herr Veitch had said truly that this was the case, and that I had been fascinated-by some evil eye, I was about to say; but I stopped suddenly, remembering that the eyes that had fascinated me had been those of the Princess, those eyes that had restored me to the dominion of the higher self. Escaping from this pitfall as best I could, I promised that

I would return to my practising, and this brought us to the end of the terrace, where was a flight of stone steps that led down into the valley. Here the Princess turned to us and said that she wished to show the Prince the cascades from the steps, some little way down: they would return to us immediately on the terrace. They went down the steps and we turned back along the terrace-walk.

The moon by this time had set, and a countless host of stars lit the arched sky above us; and over the leafy walls on every side, darkened and deepened in shade, a delicate, faint, clear light seemed to chasten and subdue the heart-the starlight of the soul. There was no sound but that of the rush of water, for the nightingales and the wind-harps were too far below. There seemed to arise around us, and to enwrap us in its emboldening folds, a protecting mist and garment of solemn, faded light and measured sound. Enshrouded in this mystic veil fear and embarrassment were taken away, and in clear, true vision we saw each other for the first time.

"You have taught me the violin," I said; "but there is another instrument, the strings of which vibrate to even higher tones: will you teach these strings, also, to vibrate in unison to your touch? It has been neglected, and is out of tune: it wants the leading of a master-hand."

"I fear the instrument is accustomed to another hand," Adelheid said.

"A violin," I said, "is played on by many a one, and they fail; but it is not cast aside. At last he comes for whom it was predestined long ago, while the wood was growing in the tree, while the mellowing sunshine and the wind were forming it—were teaching it secrets that would fit it to teach mankind in sound. He to whom it was predestined comes. He takes it in his hand and we know that once, at least, in this life, supreme music has been heard. Will you try this instrument of mine? It may, per

chance, be worth the trying, for it is a human heart."

"I will try it," she said.

There is not much more to tell. He that is happy has no history; and the life that is in tune with the melodies of heaven, in tune because it is guided by a purer life, inspired by a loftier impulse than its own, cannot fail of being happy. In the sustained and perfect harmonies that result from the concord of full, pure, true notes, there is rest and peace for the wearied and troubled brain; and the harmonies of life, that absorb and hush the discords of the world, are heard only in the private walks and daily seclusions in which love and Christian purity delight. Both harmonies came to me through a teacher of the violin.

And the Princess !

One summer afternoon in the year 1806, a gay city lay smiling in the afternoon sun. It lay in a fair plain watered by shining streams, and surrounded in the blue distance by wooded hills. The newly-built esplanades stretched away into the meadows, and from among the avenues of lindentrees the birds were singing merrily. But a fatal spell seemed to hang over this lovely scene, and the city might have been a city of the dead. Not a chance figure could be seen in its streets and boulevards: the windows of its houses were all fastened, and the blinds and jalousies drawn down and closed.

And more than this: every few moments a deathly terror tore the serene, calm air, and, alighting like a shrieking fiend, crashed into house and grove. The Prussian army was in full retreat across the fords of the river lower down, and the city was being bombarded by a battery of the French.

The blinds in the long streets were all drawn and the shutters closed; but there was one house in which not a blind was down nor a window closed. This was the palace, which stood in the centre of the city, looking