When I had entered the dusky corridor and shaken the snow from my clothing, and my guide, pointing to one of the little doors, had said, "That's number 12," I was obliged to pause a few moments to calm myself before I knocked. Is it really true? I thought. Ten years have passed like one day! In your heart at least! And she--how will you find her? But I had scarcely heard her "Come in!" when I knew she must be just the same as ever; time, grief, and even want had no power over her strong soul; and, whether I found her in this wretched almshouse or on a throne, she would ever be the mistress of my thoughts and feelings. So I entered, and the first look in which our eyes met thrilled me with the warmth and happiness a patient, on whom an operation for a cataract has been performed, feels when the bandage is removed for the first time. She was sitting in a large arm-chair by the window, past which the snow-flakes were whirling, and held on her knee an open book. The large room was bare and wholly unadorned, the walls were white-washed, the bed was covered with a brown shawl that I distinctly remembered, her trunk stood at the foot, there was a plain table and two chairs--the usual almshouse furniture. But on the table beside the _carafe_ stood a glass containing a bunch of snow-drops, in front of a daguerreotype of her child in a small easel-frame wreathed with the same white blossoms. Everything was just as usual, for she had always kept this picture near her, and she still wore, as at the time I last saw her, her mourning dress, with the little black silk kerchief wound in her fair hair, only its amber hue was not so deep, but seemed powdered with a gray dust. The beautiful oval face, however, was wholly unchanged, save for an expression of cheerfulness which had been alien to it during the last period of our companionship. How she smiled at me, how her voice sounded--was she really a sorely-afflicted woman, who had passed her fortieth year? And I, was I the dried up, provincial Philistine and pedagogue I had so long believed myself to be, or still a reckless young fellow, ready at any moment to commit the wildest folly for this woman's sake. She did not rise to greet me, but held out both hands, and I could only clasp and hold them in the utmost embarrassment. I did not venture to kiss them. I had too often seen this knightly homage paid by the man who had inflicted the keenest suffering upon her heart, and would not remind her of any bitter experience. "Frau Luise," I said, "it is really you--you have not changed in the least--I am so happy to see you again--and you were ill and I only learn your presence here to-day."