One might have doubted at that moment which of the two was--not the more beautiful, for Helen was indisputably the fairer--but the more interesting. The harmony of most lovely features, the velvety softness of a dark complexion, and the bluish blackness of her rich hair--all this spoke in favor of Helen, and seemed to raise her to inapproachable heights of beauty; but the expression in Sophie's face as she sat there, given up to her music, now bending over the keys, and coaxing out, as it were, the soft notes, and now looking up as if she was following the escaping sounds in the air, would have been ample compensation for him who finds the greatest beauty in the most spiritual expression. As a favorable glance of sunlight may often pour over a landscape, which has no charms of its own, a marvellous beauty, so the noble, art-loving soul of the girl lighted up and made brilliant her face, which was far from being really beautiful. There was something of Beethoven's nature in it--the meteoric light which the freed spirit of man casts through the vast night of sensuality into the unbounded regions of eternal brightness. And, strangely enough, in the same measure in which music heightened the expression in Sophie's face, it softened the harshness in Helen's energetic beauty, by giving her proud features a mildness which they never showed in ordinary life. The harmony of sweet notes awakened there the slumbering genius, and put here the demon of pride and ambition to sleep, so that the poetic excitement benefitted both, though in quite opposite ways. So it seemed to Oswald, while his eyes rested on the charming picture of the two girls at the piano. Helen seemed to him almost a stranger; he had to become once more familiar with her beauty; and yet, it did not make the same overwhelming impression upon him as before. He ascribed this partly to the unaccustomed surroundings, partly to the attractive form of Sophie, which interrupted him in his devotion. He did not know that since he had seen Helen last, the mirror of his soul had become dim, and was no longer able to reflect a pure image purely. In vain he tried to catch a glance from Helen. If Sophie was so entirely given up to her music that she had really forgotten his presence, Helen seemed at least to be in the same state of mind. She did not raise her eyes from the music. Oswald rejoiced at it. He concluded from it that his stormy greeting was, if not forgiven, still also not yet forgotten.