I left her at her house and returned to Cecilia, feeling very lonely, and as if I ought to be very miserable, but I could not continue it; for I was, instead of recalling her words, in a mood to recall those of Clara in our parting conversation. The same age as Maria, with no less power in her heavenly maidenhood, she came upon me as if I had seen them together, and watched the strange calm distance of those unclouded eyes next the transparent fervors of Maria's soul,--that soul in its self-betrayal so wildly beautiful, so undone with its own emotion. Clara I remembered as one not to be approached or reached but by fathoming her crystal intellect; and even then it appeared to me that there was more passion in her enshrining stillness than in anything but the music that claimed and owned her. But Maria had seemed on fire as she had spoken, and even when she spoke not, she passed into the very heart by sympathy abounding, summer-like. I little thought how soon, in that respect, her change would come. There was one, too, whom I saw not again until that change. Over this leaf of my history I can only glance, for it would be as a sheet of light unrelieved by any shade or pencilling; suffice it to say that day by day, in morning's golden dream, at dream-like afternoon, I studied and soared. I was--after the Chevalier had left, and the excitement of his possible presence had ceased--blissfully happy again, and in much the same state as when I lived with Aronach; certainly I did not expand, as Maria might have said. The advent of the Chevalier, which was as a king's visit, being delayed until the spring, I had left off hoping he might appear any fine morning, and my initiation--"by trance"--went on apace; I was utterly undisturbed. At Christmas we had a concert,--a concert worthy of the name; and with all the Christmas heartedness of Germany we dressed our beloved hall with its evergreens and streamers. Besides, that overture, the "Mer de Glace," which, even under an inferior conductor, would make its way, was one of our interpretations; and it appeared to have some effect upon the whole crew that was not very material, as nothing would do in our after sledging party, but that all the instruments should be carried also, and an attempt made to refrigerate the ice-movement over again, by performing it in the frosty air, upon the frost-spelled water. I was to have gone to England this year, as arranged; but the old-fashioned frump, a very hard winter, had laid in great stores of snow, with great raving winds, and my mother took fright at the idea of my crossing the water,--besides, it was agreed that as Millicent and Davy had seen me so lately, I could get on very well as I was until June.