The weeks flew rapidly away, however, and the tranquility and happiness of the family were continually increasing. The professor’s mental and physical strength gradually returned. Work alone was forbidden him, but reading and conversation were allowable and salutary diversions. His conversations with Hansfelt were sometimes as interesting as of old, and he might have been supposed to have regained the complete use of his faculties had not a partial decay of memory sometimes warned his friends he had not entirely recovered from his illness. For example, he often imagined himself in the Old Mansion, and this illusion became stronger after all his children, including Gabrielle, gathered around him. But in other respects his memory was good. Hansfelt found him as correct and clear as ever on all points of history or literary and religious subjects. It seemed as if the higher faculties of his nature recovered their tone first, and were invigorated by contact with the noble mind of his friend. Thus the evenings passed away without _ennui_, even for the youngest, while listening to their conversation. These evenings frequently ended with music, which the professor craved and indeed required as a part of his treatment. Clement would take his violin, and not at all unwillingly, for he saw his cousin always listened to it attentively. In this way he dared address her in a mysterious language, which he alone understood, but which sometimes gave her a thrill as if she were listening to the echo of her own cry of pain. One evening, when he had excelled, she said: “You call that a song without words, Clement, but the music was certainly composed for a song, which perhaps you know, do you not?” “No,” replied he, “but like you I imagine I can hear the words, and feel they must exist somewhere.” Hansfelt had also been listening attentively to the music. “Yes,” said he smiling, “they exist in the hearts of all who love—especially in the hearts of all who love without hope. Here I will express in common language, but not in rhyme, the meaning of what Clement has just played.” He took a pencil and hastily wrote four lines nearly synonymous with those of a French poet: “Du mal qu’une amour ignorée Nous fait souffrir Je porte l’âme déchirée Jusqu’à mourir!”(1) The pang of unrequited love I feel; ’Tis death the bleeding heart I bear Must heal! Clement made no reply, but abruptly changed the subject. The children rose and clapped their hands as he struck up their favorite tarantella, and became noisy as well as gay.