At first he had not been over-punctual in the matter of the lessons, and taken more delight in enjoying himself with his pupils in the open air. They had explored the beech forest, which extended for half an hour from Castle Grenwitz down to the sea-shore; they had discovered an ancient tumulus and a cave, and often they had climbed down from the lofty chalk cliffs to the beach below, where, standing upon a huge block, they had enjoyed seeing the tide rush up, and shouted aloud to see if the breakers overpowered their voices. During these excursions, which Oswald jestingly called preliminary studies for Homer, he had had constant opportunity to study the character of his two pupils. A greater contrast could hardly exist. Bruno was tall for his years, but slender and agile, swift like a deer. Malte, the young heir, looked stunted and sickly by the side of his proud companion. He was narrow-chested and hollow-breasted; his angular, awkward movements contrasted strangely with the marvellously graceful carriage of Bruno, and the effect was still greater when the latter was running or leaping. Malte shrank back from every danger, from every exertion, conscious of his feeble strength, and from native or acquired cowardice; for Bruno no tree was too high, no rock too steep, no ditch too broad; it seemed almost as if he were trying to subdue the passionate heat of his soul by bodily exhaustion. Oswald bound a wreath of oak-leaves together and placed it on the boy's bluish-black curls, to make him still more like one of the Bacchantes. But as in his native land, Sweden, the icy night of winter suddenly gives birth to fragrant, smiling spring, so in his mind also sunshine and tempest changed in a moment. Now it was exuberant joy and now sad melancholy which prevailed; now he abandoned himself like a child to others, and now he became rigid in sudden defiance; and all this suddenly and without transition, as lights and shadows change on the mountain slope on a day when the wind is driving the clouds like arrows across the face of the sun. Thus Oswald found the boy, a stranger in the house of his relations, hated by some, feared by others, an inexplicable riddle for all, even for the good old baron, who always took the part of the boy, though generally more from inborn magnanimity than from conviction. But for Oswald a single glance at the dreamy dark eye of the boy had sufficed to recognize in him a kindred spirit, and the mystic alliance which they had formed at that moment had been strengthened by every hour of their intercourse since. Bruno had met him on the first day of their meeting with the dark, defiant look which he was wont to show to everybody. He had then watched him with his shy but penetrating glances for two or three days more, and then Oswald's kindly, cheerful manner had dissipated all suspicion, as the sun scatters unwholesome fogs. His eye had become more open, more brilliant, as if the unexpected happiness of meeting a man who loved