ned to himself that he had lost one
of the best secretaries he had ever known.

IV.

Three days later Paul descended from the train which runs twice a day
from Pforzheim to Constance, at a station in the heart of the Swabian
Black Forest. The name painted in black Gothic letters over the neat,
cottage-like building before which the train stopped was _Teinach_. Paul
had never heard of the place until his mother had telegraphed that she
was there, and he looked about him with curiosity, while a dark youth,
in leather breeches, rough stockings, and a blouse, possessed himself of
the traveler's slender luggage, and began to lead the way to the hotel.

It was late in the afternoon, and the sinking sun had almost touched the
top of the hill. On all sides but one the pines and firs presented a
black, absorbing surface to the light, while at the upper end of the
valley the ancient and ruined castle of Zavelstein caught the sun's
rays, and stood clearly out against the dark background. It is
impossible to imagine anything more monotonous in color than this
boundless forest of greenish-black trees, and it is perhaps for this
reason that the ruins of the many old fortresses, which once commanded
every eminence from Weissenstein to the Boden-See, are seen to such
singular advantage. The sober gray or brown masonry, which anywhere else
would offer but a neutral tint in the landscape, here constitutes high
lights as compared with the impenetrable shadows of the woods; and even
the sky above, generally seen through the thick masses of evergreen,
seems to be of a more sombre blue. In the deep gorges the black water of
the Nagold foams and tumbles among the hollow rocks, or glides smoothly
over the long and shallow races by which the jointed timber rafts are
shot down to the Neckar, and thence to the Rhine and the ocean, many
hundreds of miles away. For the chief wealth of Swabia and of the
kingdom of Wuertemberg lies in the splendid timber of the forest, which
is carefully preserved, and in which no tree is felled without the order
of the royal foresters. Indeed, Nature herself does most of the felling,
for in winter fierce wind-storms gather and spread themselves in the
winding valleys, tearing down acres of trees upon the hill-sides in
broad, straight bands, and leaving them there, uprooted and fallen over
each other in every direction, like a box of wooden matches carelessly
emptied upon a dark green table. Then come the w