_Dear Friend_: I hear you are with us for a short time. We have not met for many years, and if it is agreeable to you, I should like to see an old friend again. You will find me alone this afternoon in the Swiss Cottage. Yours sincerely, MARIE. I immediately replied, also in English, that I would call in the afternoon. The Swiss Cottage constituted a wing of the castle, which overlooked the garden, and could be reached without going through the castle yard. It was five o'clock when I passed through the garden and approached the cottage. I repressed all emotion and prepared myself for a formal meeting. I sought to quiet my good angel, and to assure her that this lady had nothing to do with her. And yet I felt very uneasy, and my good angel would not listen to counsel. Finally I took courage, murmuring something to myself about the masquerade of life, and rapped on the door, which stood ajar. There was no one in the room except a lad whom I did not know, and who likewise spoke English, and said the Countess would be present in a moment. She then left, and I was alone, and had time to look about. The walls of the room were of rose-chestnut, and over an openwork trellis, a luxuriant broadleaved ivy twined around the whole room. All the tables and chairs were of carved rose-chestnut. The floor was of variegated woodwork. It gave me a curious sensation to see so much that was familiar in the room. Many articles from our old play-room in the castle were old friends, but the others were new, especially the pictures, and yet they were the same as those in my University room--the same portraits of Beethoven, Handel and Mendelssohn, as I had selected--hung over the grand piano. In one corner I saw the Venus di Milo, which I always regarded as the masterpiece of antiquity. On the table were volumes of Dante, Shakspeare, Tauler's Sermons, the "German Theology," Ruckert's Poems, Tennyson and Burns, and Carlyle's "Past and Present,"--the very same books--all of which I had had but recently in my hands. I was growing thoughtful, but I repressed my thoughts and was just standing before the portrait of the deceased Princess, when the door opened, and the same two servants, whom I had so often seen in childhood, brought the Countess into the room upon her couch. What a vision! She spoke not a word, and her countenance was as placid as the sea, until the servants left the room. Then her eyes sought me--the old, deep, unfathomable eyes. Her expression grew more animated each instant. At last her whole face lit up, and she said: "We are old friends--I believe; we have not changed. I cannot say 'You,' and if I may not say 'Thou,' then we must speak in English. Do you understand me?"