“Yes,” answered their father, “to dance, and ride, and—but only think, Catharine, of my really going to the springs! I can hardly believe it.” They all talked over the journey with the comforting conviction that it was no longer a mere vision, and it was unalterably determined that Theodora should accompany her father. The council sat until far into the night, that every thing might be discussed—what they should carry with them, and through what towns and villages they should pass on their journey. But when the village watchman called “Twelve o’clock,” the father knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and said, “Children, it is late, we shall have a whole day to-morrow.” Paul shut up his soldiers in their barracks made by some old folios on the lowest shelf of the book-case, and certainly the god of slumber never embraced happier people than the inhabitants of that little cottage. Theodora alone could not sleep. Her mind was too much excited to be quickly composed to rest. As the moon shining on drops of dew causes them to emit sparkles in the dark night, which vanish again suddenly, so dreams and fancies sprung up in Theodora’s mind, and she hardly suspected that the stranger in the park was the chief cause of her excitement. Without any distinct thoughts of him, and without the remembrance of a word that he had said, his image was, in the confusion of her mind, like the foundation color in a landscape, like the _thema_ in one of Beethoven’s symphonies. Only in her short morning slumber did his image present itself, as he handed her the handkerchief. But the dream vanished before the clear light of the morning sun, and the day with its busy plans and thousand occupations dissipated the half-formed visions of the night. Again, however, twilight came with its shadows, its cool breezes, and its memories, and as she again strolled down the garden with her little brother, her heart fluttered with feelings of alarm and anxiety. She feared that the young stranger would suddenly stand before her again, as he had done upon the preceding evening, and yet she could not keep away from the dangerous spot. But no stranger appeared; she glanced timidly down the dark walk, but nothing was to be seen. At last, lost in thought, she stood before the very rose-bush where she had first seen him the day before. But her reverie was suddenly interrupted, for Ernst sprung from behind a large lilac-bush, dragging the stranger with him, and crying, “I have you, you rogue; you want to play hide and seek with Dora, do you? Away with you!” With a frank smile the young man, yielding to the child, approached the blushing girl, who would fain have turned away. “Hold him fast,” cried Ernst, “or he will run away, and before I can get my horsemen out to follow him he will be beyond the mountains.”