* * * * * I did not set off in search of Aaron or Adolf Leiblinger as soon as I arrived in Vienna, although I had fully determined to do so. Who will not at once understand the reason? Imagine a lad of eighteen years of age, shy, poor, ignorant of the world, and brought up in a small country town, suddenly removed from all his accustomed surroundings and transplanted to one of the great capitals of Europe. He would naturally feel lost and dazed in the crowd hurrying past him, and among the endless streets and houses stretched out before him. He would need time to grow used to the change in his life, and to gain courage to face it. It was so with me. And then again, how was I to find him among the four thousand students who attended the university classes? I gave up the idea, and trusted to chance. It was on a dismal afternoon in December that we met at last. There had been a thick mist all day, which after a time became a fine persistent and very wetting rain. It was so disagreeable that I was driven to take refuge in a large crowded _cafe_ in the Alster suburb, in hopes of the shower passing off. Every seat was occupied, but at last I succeeded in finding a vacant chair in the billiard-room. The rain lasted so long that I grew tired of watching the drip from the leaves of the plants in the garden, and turned my attention to the game that was going on. Three young men were playing at pool. The marker addressed them all as "Herr Doctor," so I saw that they must be medical students. My attention was particularly drawn to one of the three--a slender and rather delicate-looking man of middle height, with marked but finely cut features. He would have looked pale anyhow, but the intense blue-black of his wavy hair and beard made him appear almost startlingly pallid. His face could not be called handsome--his lips were too thin for that, and his forehead too low. The moment I caught sight of his face, I saw that he had a story; it did not occur to me at first that I had ever seen him before. But suddenly, when the thin lips were firmly pressed together, and the low forehead was contracted into a frown at some jesting remark of one of his companions, it flashed upon me all at once--"That is black Aaron!" And so it was. I can hardly tell whether our meeting was a pleasurable one; at any rate, our pleasure was not unmixed. When two young people have been separated for some time, they are apt to be rather shy with each other when they first meet, for they hardly know how much change may have taken place in each other's ways and ideas. This is doubly the case after a long separation, such as Aaron's and mine. We strove hard to bring back the old footing that had existed between us, but in vain. Our conversation was disjointed, and threatened to come to a speedy conclusion, when I suddenly remembered the message with which I had been intrusted.