Then he would hurry back to the house, scare the lads with a harshness they had never seen in him before, and fall as violently to work as though he meant to do in a day, or in half a day, what would be the work of weeks. But he would soon let his brush drop, and sit motionless upon the scaffolding, staring at some vacant spot on the opposite wall, where his fancy had conjured up a charming vision--a pensive face, and the turn of a graceful head resting on snowy shoulders, a pair of admirably moulded arms, of that smooth pearly white, which art so rarely renders, and is but too apt to turn the head of the artist who attempts it. Almost half the week had been spent in this desultory way, when one morning the Meister called up Walter, and believing the ceiling of the shell-gallery to be finished, all except the centre-piece, he gave him an old engraving to sketch in with charcoal in the necessarily increased proportions. The Meister proposed to be there before twelve o'clock, to see if the sketch would do. It was an engraving after Claude Lorraine, with some architecture in the foreground, set off by a group of lofty trees. As for the sunrise in the background, that, the Meister thought, he should like to do himself. Walter set off with far more alacrity than usual. His task allured him; frequent practice had made him quick at landscape-drawing, whereas he always preferred to leave the figures to his comrades. The ceiling had been originally planned with a centre-piece of allegorical figures; but, of course, since Peter Lars' defection, that was not to be thought of now. Walter was just thinking of this disagreeable personage, and rejoicing in his absence, when he heard a voice behind him, and looking round, he saw the very man coming after him at a brisk pace. He stopped, and waited for him with an instinct of vague curiosity. He wanted to discover why he had been so suddenly turned off--he had heard no particulars. The black-faced little fellow, who was walking along in full travelling trim, with staff and knapsack, appeared to be in his happiest mood; his pursed-up lips wore their sliest sneer, with even more decided mischief in it than usual. His eyebrows were drawn up to his cap, and as he called after Walter, his voice sounded like the treble tones of a chaffing boy. "You are the very man I wanted to see;" he began, even before he had come up with him. "Scheiden und meiden thut weh!--partings are grievous, you know; and though I could have done all my partings with my principal in writing, well enough, I wished to take leave of you, for I had a thing or two to tell you, that would not have done quite so well in a letter. So if your people did not forbid you to contaminate yourself with an outlawed miscreant like myself, I will walk your way with you a bit." "As you please; but tell me what you did, Peter, to bring things to such a sudden crisis?"