The day before yesterday, at ten in the evening, we arrived at Wilhelmi's Arcadian dwelling, which pressed its straw roof against a green marble wall. Karlson found it easily from its proximity to the famed Campan Cave, from which he had often broken stalactites. The sky was clouded with colored shadows, and on the green cradle of slumbering children night threw her star-embroidered cradle-cover, fastened to the summits of the Pyrenees. From out Wilhelmi's hermitage advanced some men in _black_ attire, with torches in their hands, who seemed to be waiting for us, and told us the baron was in the Cave. By heaven, under such circumstances, it is easier to imagine the most circumscribed, than the _largest_ and most _beautiful_ Cave! The sable attendants carried the flame before them, and drew the flying smoke-picture from oak-top to oak-top, and led us, stooping, through the catacomb entrance. But how splendidly was arched the high and wide grotto,[6] with its crystal sides, shining like an illumined ice Louvre, a gleaming sub-terrestrial heaven vault. Wilhelmi threw away a handful of gathered spars, and joyfully hastened into his friend's arms. Gione, with her sister, advanced from behind a connected stalactite and stalagmite. The gleaming of the torches gave her an undecided outline, but at length Wilhelmi advanced to her, and said, "Here is our friend." Bending low, Karlson kissed the warm living hand, and was dumb with emotion. But the firm features of Gione's earnest face, which wanted but Nadine's juvenile bloom, changed into a shining joy, greater than he dared to return or reward. "We have long expected and missed you in this paradise," she said, with unshaken voice; and her clear, calm eye opened a view into a richly-gifted, steadfast soul. "Welcome to the infernal regions," said Nadine; "you believe in reunion and Elysium now?" Though she received him with an assemblage or Flora of wit, or was it grace? for they were difficult to distinguish, this cheerfulness of character and acquirement seemed not to be the cheerfulness of a contented or reposeful mind. My friend introduced me properly, that no supermember or _hors d'[oe]uvre_ should remain in this corporation of friendship. To all of us--even to me--for around me never before seen beings floated in silver reflections--it seemed as if the world had ceased, Elysium had opened, and the separated, covered, sub-terrestrial regions cradled only tranquil, but happy souls.