the desire to know the man led me to adopt the course I have just mentioned. So much by way of explanation. And now, furnished with the card and the advice contained in my friend R.'s letter, I proceeded one afternoon to the ---- Strasse, and sought admittance. A decent-looking servant-woman opened the door, and to my inquiry replied that Herr M---y was certainly at home, but whether engaged or not she could not answer. She ushered me into a small apartment on my right, which seemed intended for a reception-room. I was about sending some kind of message to the master of the house, for I did not like to trust the magic card out of my possession, when I heard a door open and shut at the end of the hall, and the quick, nervous step of a along the passage. Seeing the servant standing by the door, M---y, for it was he, walked toward it and presented himself bodily before me. He wore a cap and dressing-gown, and looked vexed, but not ill-natured, on seeing me. I was much embarrassed, and, forgetting what I had proposed to say to him, I put R.'s card into his hand without a word. His eye lighted up instantly. "You are from America?--You are welcome!--How is my friend?" were words rapidly enunciated. "Come with me,--leave your hat there,--so!"--and we mounted a flight of stairs, passed what I perceived to be a fine _salon_, then through a charming, domestic-looking apartment into one still smaller, around the walls of which hung three portraits. Portraits did I say? I can employ no other name,--but so life-like and so human, my first impression was that I was entering a room where were three living people. "Never you mind these," exclaimed M---y, pleasantly, "but sit down there," pointing to a large _fauteuil_, "and tell me when you reached Munich, and if you will stay some time: then I can judge better how to do for you." My face flushed, for I felt guilty at the little fraud I seemed to have practised on him. I hesitated only an instant, and then frankly told him the truth: how it was eighteen months since I left America; how I had been three months in Munich already; how, hearing so much about him and observing him frequently in the streets, I became anxious for his acquaintance, and had written to R. accordingly. The man has the face of a child: cloud and sunshine pass rapidly over it. Pleasure and chagrin, sometimes anger, oftener joy, flit across it, swiftly as the flashing of a meteor. While I was making this explanation, he looked at me with a searching scrutiny,--at first angrily, then sadly, as if he were going to cry; but when I finished, he took my hand in both of his, and said, very seriously,-- "You are welcome just the same." Soon he commenced laughing: the oddity of the affair was just beginning to strike him. After conversing awhile, he said,-- "Ah, we shall like each other,--shall we not? Where do you stay? You shall come and live with me. But will that content you? Have you seen enough of the outside of Munich?"