"To us"--here the professor suddenly and unconsciously dropped the English in which he had been speaking, for his native German--"to us, this chimes and echoes through a thousand songs and legends, it is wafted to us in every rustle of the forest, it speaks to us in the voiceless silence of every rocky cliff. From our mountains, from our castles, the mighty forms of the past descend; in our cities, the old races rise again in their pristine might and splendor; our cathedrals, memorials of imperishable magnificence and power, tower heavenward; the Loreley entices and beckons us down beneath its green waves, in whose deepest depths, sparkles and glitters the Niebelungen horde,--all this lives, and enchants us in and around our Rhine, Miss Forest, and this certainly, no--stranger can understand." Jane had listened, first in surprise, then in wonder, but at last in utter consternation. What had all at once come over this man. He stood before her erect and tall, his face almost transfigured by an inner light, his eyes glowing with excitement. She listened to the deep, fervid tones of his voice, she yielded to the spell of his eloquence, where word crowded upon word, picture upon picture, and it seemed to her as if here also a misty veil had been riven, and she caught a glimpse out into infinite space--gleaming with golden light. The chrysalis had suddenly fallen from the pale, suffering form, which so long under a ban, now came forth into its true light, and soared to its true place. Jane Forest was not woman enough to remain long under such an infatuation, without exerting all her strength to break from it. Her whole inner being rose in arms; the whole pride and obstinacy of her nature arrayed themselves against this power, which for some moments had held her in willess control, against this influence that had so oppressed her. She must break the spell, cost what it would, and with quick determination, she grasped after the first weapon that stood at her command--remorseless irony. "I did not know you were a poet, Professor Fernow!" she said, mockingly. The professor shuddered, as if a shrill discord had met his ear; the flush in his face died out, his eyes fell to the ground. "_A poet?_--_I?_" he said in a half-stifled voice. "What you have just been saying did not sound at all like prose." Fernow sighed deeply, and passed his hand over his forehead. "I beg your pardon, Miss Forest, for having ennuyed you with poetry. Ascribe it to my ignorance of the rules of society,--whose first precept is, that one must not speak to a lady of that which she cannot comprehend."