"I know all, my friend; you need not add another word. And I also know that I love you with all my heart, and therefore it is better for us to part. A woman whose husband has vanished is not free to choose--surely you understand that. And I will suffer no stain upon my name. You will remain my friend, as I am yours. And to seal this, I will now, in bidding you farewell, affectionately embrace you and give you a sister's kiss. Your lips, my faithful friend, shall restore the purity of mine, which yesterday were desecrated by a scoundrel." With these words, she embraced me, and for one brief, blissful moment her warm lips pressed mine in a pure and tender caress. Then, with a low "Farewell, my friend," she gently pushed me out of the door. The next morning, when I woke from sorrowful dreams, and was hurriedly dressing, some one knocked at my door. Kunigunde entered and, with many tears, told me that her mistress had driven away at dawn in a hired carriage, telling nobody her destination, and leaving for me a farewell and a little package. It was a sealed paper. When I opened it, out fell the gold chain on which she used to wear around her neck the locket containing her mother's picture. III. Several weeks have passed since I wrote the last lines. When I laid the sheet in the portfolio--a music portfolio Frau Luise had left, and in which I usually kept some of the airs from Gluck's operas arranged for the piano--I was startled by the bulk of the MS., and asked myself: "Will any one have patience to read all this? And why should you add to it?" Ah, if you were a professional author, and, instead of a truthful narrative of the life of the woman so dear to you, could transform her fate into a genuine romance, skillfully blending fact and fiction, or if you at least possessed the gift of describing these experiences in hues so fresh and vivid that no one could help finding her as charming as she is to you! But you are only a clumsy, simple chronicler of events, and the man for whom you intend these records will smile at the _labor improbus_ you have bestowed on so superfluous a work and at your innocent idea that you were thereby doing him a favor. Well, I then thought, even if you are only pleasing yourself by again conjuring up your old joys and sorrows, what harm is there in that? He can let the avalanche of MS. you hurl into his house roll quietly aside with the others the mail brings to importune him. Who compels him to do more than cast a compassionate glance at it? But, if he forgives the lonely man his volubility, and eats through this biographical mountain, as Klas Avenstak ate through the hill of pancakes, he must expect that I shall not defraud him of the end, especially as the early close the gods decreed to Luise's life was spiced with much that was sweet, to compensate for many bitter things in her previous destiny.