The housekeeper, Frau Willmers, entered. "A gentleman is waiting below, Fräulein Hartwich, who sends his card and says he comes from the gentleman whose name is written upon it." Ernestine read the name "Professor Heim," and below, in Heim's handwriting, "earnestly recommends the bearer of this card." "The gentleman is welcome!" she cried with awakened animation. "Show him into the library." "Will the Fräulein receive him without the knowledge of----" the woman asked with hesitation and surprise. "I will!" replied Ernestine firmly. "Now, Heaven be praised!" muttered the old woman, "that you are to see some one at last, and the gentleman is well worth a look. But you will bear the blame with your uncle, so that I may have no responsibility in the matter?" "The responsibility is mine." Frau Willmers hurried out and conducted the stranger into Ernestine's library. A pleasant bluish twilight reigned in the room as he entered it, caused by the heavy blue damask curtains that draped the high bow-windows. It was a spacious octagon apartment, in the style of the tower chambers of the Middle Ages, opening on to a balcony, which was likewise separated from the room by blue damask curtains. The Æolian harp, of which the peasant had spoken, hung in the balcony, and some loosened tendrils of a wild grapevine, growing outside, stirred by the breeze, touched the strings and called forth from them broken stray notes, which a stronger breeze would blend in harmony, as the fingers of a child, guided by its teacher, plays vaguely upon an instrument until the practised hand of its master produces a full, clear chord. In the dark boughs that overshadowed the balcony, birds were singing, and now and then hopping confidingly upon the rose-bushes with which it was decorated. "She loves beauty," thought the stranger with a pleased glance around the cool, quiet apartment, which breathed only contentment and peace. And it must be true peace of mind that the inhabitant of this room possessed,--wherever the eyes were turned, they fell upon the immortal works of the great thinkers of modern times,--a costly library was ranged upon shelves, in richly-carved oaken bookcases.