"What can be the matter?" said Franz to himself, when he had accompanied her a little way, and was returning. "She is so different from her usual self. Is it my fault? Has something annoyed her? What paper was that, which she was strewing the bits of to the wind?" With such thoughts he came to the place where she had dropped them, and see! There lay the fragments of paper, and, without picking them up, he read on one of them,--"dreams of vengeance!! only now Fritz Triddelsitz," for Fritz had forgotten to put a period after "now." This excited his curiosity, for he recognized Fritz's handwriting; he looked further, but found only a couple of fragments, and, fitting them together, made out these disconnected words:-- "Entwine--a loving glance--heart that beats for thine--Spring flowers--I unseen, still follow--Love is vanished--Bloom in vain--Ah, a youth--But Revenge!--vengeance!! only now Fritz Triddelsitz;" the wind had carried away the rest. There was not much to be made out of this; the only thing which after long reflection he believed himself positively to have arrived at, was that Fritz Triddelsitz was in love with Louise, that he was upbraiding her, and threatening her with vengeance. The thing was ridiculous, but Fritz was a creature as full of stupid tricks as a donkey of gray hairs, he was quite capable of doing some crazy thing, and giving annoyance to Louise; so Franz resolved to be on the watch, and if Fritz went toward Gurlitz, not to let him out of his sight. Fritz had broken the ice now, he had done his part; now it was the turn of Louise, she must speak, if anything was to come of the matter. He waited and watched, but nothing came. "It is very provoking," he said to himself, "but she knows nothing of such affairs, and it is doubtless all right; I must show her the way." So he set himself to work, and wrote a letter in a disguised hand. Address:--"To One Who Knows." Superscription:--"Sweet Dream of my Heart!" "This letter is dumb, it says merely what is necessary, and will be found on the _third_ rose-bush in the _second_ row; other things by word of mouth. This by way of preliminary: when a cross is marked with white chalk on the garden gate, the _contents of my heart_ may be found under the pot of the third rose-bash in the second row. _Waving a handkerchief_, from the Gurlitz side betokens thy presence, and desire for an interview; my response will be three whistles on the handle of my walking-stick. (Our shepherd taught me that, love is an apt scholar.) "Rendezvous: the great water-ditch at the right of the bridge. "Thine ever!! "One Whom thou Knowest. "P.S. The loved one will excuse me for writing this in my shirt-sleeves, it is so infernally hot."