But as I found my way at last to the streets more particularly allotted to the dealers in all sorts of _bijouterie_, toys, paintings, engravings, and other works of art, my wonder and delight were increased at every step. Amid the infinite variety of objects conducive to luxury and amusement here exhibited, time passed on like a dream. I did not fail to indulge myself in the purchase of several articles of ornament and convenience. A watch and chain, two seal rings, a large _meerschaum_ pipe, (which the vender rightly declared to be a _chef d'oeuvre_,) a few books and prints, etc.; all which I ordered to be sent home to my hotel. On arriving afterwards at the Great Square, in the centre of the town, I was confounded by finding it already occupied by caravans and temporary theatres, filled with wild beasts, travelling players, puppet-shows, giants, dwarfs, panoramas, jugglers, etc. etc. etc. These sights, however, I did not venture for the present to examine more narrowly, but made my way into the public walks and gardens by which the town is surrounded, and which were now gay with genteel parties, enjoying the afternoon's promenade, enlivened, moreover, with excellent music from harp-players, singers, organists, etc., many of whom, especially of the singers, reminded me of the best music that I had heard in early days, in the house of the choir-master at Königswald. For a moment, too, I was reminded of his sister, by the countenance, and yet more by the figure, of a girl that passed me, in the midst of a thicket of very dark massive pines, near the Bockenheimer gate; but the recollection was transient; for now, though surrounded by gaiety and music, by sparkling groups and beautiful countenances, (for at Frankenburg, as at Saxe Gotha, almost every female, not in the extreme of old age, is beautiful,) yet by rapid degrees the cheerfulness which I had felt at the commencement of my walk vanished quite away. All at once I felt within me the solution of the riddle, the explanation of the cause why I was thus changed. I was _alone_ in the midst of these happy groups. The trees, the flowers, (withered and yellowed already by the blasts of autumn,) the ruddy gleams of the western sky, and the varieties of the landscape--these, indeed, were like society--these I partook in common with the parties around me--but of all the shapes and forms of men and women, smiling or grave, meditative or gay, that moved about me, I knew _not one_. There was not a single individual in whose breast I could imagine a shadow of apprehension who I really was--what strange chance had brought me hither, or even the least atom of that overpowering load of mystery by which I was weighed down, and which was wholly locked up within my own bosom.