and the Strauss-walzes sounded pleasantly in the ears of Flemming, who, though he never danced, yet, like Henry of Ofterdingen, in the Romance of Novalis, thought to music. The wheeling waltz set the wheels of his fancy going. And thus the moments glided on, and the footsteps of Time were not heard amid the sound of music and voices. But suddenly this scene of gayety was interrupted. The door opened wide; and the short figure of a gray-haired old man presented itself, with a flushed countenance and wild eyes. He was but half-dressed, and in his hand held a silver candlestick without a light. A sheet was wound round his head, like a turban; and he tottered forward with a vacant, bewildered look, exclaiming; "I am Mahomet, the king of the Jews!" At the same moment he fell in a swoon; and was borne out of the room by the servants. Flemming looked at the lady of the festival, and she was deadly pale. For a moment all was confusion; and the dance and the music stopped. Theimpression produced on the company was at once ludicrous and awful. They tried in vain to rally. The whole society was like a dead body, from which the spirit has departed. Ere long the guests had all dispersed, and left the lady of the mansion to her mournful, expiring lamps, and still more mournful reflections. "Truly," said Flemming, to the Baron, as they wended their way homeward, "this seems not like reality; but like one of the sharp contrasts we find in novels. Who shall say, after this, that there is not more romance in real life, than we find written in books!" "Not more romance," said the Baron, "but a different romance." A still more tragic scene had been that evening enacted in Heidelberg. Just as the sun set, two female figures walked along the romantic woodland path-way, leading to the Angel's Meadow, a little green opening on the brow of one of the high hills, which see themselves in the Neckar and hear the solemn bells of Kloster-Neuburg. The evening shadows were falling broad and long; and the cuckoo began to sing. "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" said the eldest of the two figures, repeating an old German popular rhyme, `Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Tell me true, Tell me fair and fine, How long must I unmarried pine!' " It was the voice of an evil spirit, that spoke in the person of Madeleine; and the pale and shrinking figure, that walked by her side, and listened to those words, was Emma of Ilmenau. A young man joined them, where the path turns into the thick woodlands; and they disappeared among the shadowy branches. It was the Polish Count. The forget-me-nots looked up to heaven with their meek blue eyes, from their home in the Angel's Meadow. Calmly stood the mountain of All-Saints, in its majestic, holy stillness;--the river flowed so far below, that the murmur of itswaters was not heard;--there was not a sigh of the evening wind among the leaves,--not a sound upon the earth nor in the air;--and yet that night there fell a star from heaven! CHAPTER X. THE PARTING.