Amid these thoughts the lowing of the cattle sounded softly from the stalls. Looking up, he saw a number of maids carrying full milk-pails to the dairy. Behind them went Ilse, in a simple morning dress; her fair hair shone in the sun like spun gold, and her step was brisk and vigorous like the early morn. The Professor felt shy about approaching her; his eyes followed her thoughtfully; she also was one of the forms that henceforth was to live within him, the ideal of his dreams--perhaps of his wishes. For how long? and how powerfully? He did not realize that his Roman emperors were to aid in answering this question within the next hour. The proprietor came across the farm-yard and, greeting the Professor, invited him to take a short walk into the fields. As the two walked together--both able men, and yet so different in face and figure, in mind and manners--many would have noted the contrast with deep interest, and Ilse not last among them. But no one that did not have the eyes of a treasure-seeker or exorcist could perceive how different were the invisible retinues of tiny spirits that flitted round the temples and shoulders of each,--comparable to swarms of countless birds or bees. The spirits that attended the farmer were in homely working garb, blue blouses and fluttering bandanas, among them a few forms in the misty robes of Faith, Hope, and Charity. On the other hand, round the Professor swarmed an invisible throng of foreign phantoms with togas, and antique helmets, in purple robes and Greek chlamys, athletes also--some with bundles of rods and winged hats. The little retinue of the Proprietor flew incessantly over the fields and back again; the swarm round the Professor remained steadily by him. At last the proprietor stopped at one particular field; he looked at it with great delight, and mentioned that he had here succeeded by deep ploughing in growing green lupines, then newly introduced into cultivation. The Professor seemed surprised; among his spirit-retinue there arose a confused stir; one of the small antique spirits flew to the nearest clod of earth and fastened thereto a delicate web which it had spun from the head of the Professor. Whereupon the Professor told his companion how deep ploughing for green lupines had been the custom of the Romans, and how rejoiced he was that now after more than a thousand years this old discovery had been brought to light again in our farming. They then spoke of the change in agriculture, and the Professor mentioned how striking it was that three hundred years after the beginning of our era, the corn exchanges at the harbors of the Black Sea and Asia Minor were so similar to those of Hamburg and London in modern days, while at present other agricultural produce was principally cultivated in the East. Finally, he told him of a grain tariff that was imposed by a Roman emperor, and that unfortunately the price of wheat and barley, the two products on which then depended