arms, motionless, upon a little eminence in the garden, looking full at the descending orb of light, while the breeze stirred the heavy folds of her dress. The evening-red cast a glow upon her grave face, white as marble, and the light in her large eyes seemed not to proceed from the sun which they mirrored, but from within. I stared like a boy at the beautiful, silent apparition, and forgot that my gaze might annoy her should she become aware of it. And so it proved. As she took up some coloured glasses lying beside her, I saw with surprise that she was trying some optical experiment, and just then her glance fell upon me. A shade of vexation passed over her face, now turned from the light, and lent it a cold, stern expression. Without honouring me with a second glance, she gathered together her optical instruments and walked quietly down the little hill. Just then the sun disappeared below the horizon, as if at her command, and gloomy twilight gathered above the silent garden, in whose paths she disappeared. I could not picture to myself a happy face among those rank, thick bushes behind that high wall. I could not imagine a happy heart in the breast of that lonely, gloomy figure. Night fell while I was still vainly looking after her. I hurried on to the schoolmaster's, upon the pretence of finding Hilsborn, and learned from him that my unknown was Ernestine Hartwich. She had, a short time before, rented the Haunted Castle, as it was called, and, as they were not very enlightened in the village, the beautiful girl was regarded with a sort of supernatural terror,--for certainly something must be wrong with one who lived so entirely cut off from intercourse with human beings, and who, worse than all, never went to church. There was some excuse to be found for her, to be sure, in the evil influence of a step-uncle and guardian, who had had charge of her since the early death of her parents, and who possessed entire authority over her. He is that famous, or rather infamous, Doctor Gleissert, of whom you have all heard." "Oho! he!" murmured the gentlemen in a contemptuous tone, and old Heim bestowed upon him a hearty "Scoundrel!" "Well," Johannes continued, "I am sure you will not imagine me such a fool as to have fallen in love at the first sight of a beautiful face, but the apparition that I have just described presented a combination of what is most attractive to a man,--'beauty, intellect, and virtue.'" "Virtue!" Herbert repeated; "are you so sure of that?"