e. I observe in you, Richie, an extraordinary
deficiency of memory. She has had an illness; Neptune speed her recovery!
Now for a turn at our German. Die Strassen ruhen; die Stadt schlaft; aber
dort, siehst Du, dort liegt das blaue Meer, das nimmer-schlafende! She is
gazing on it, and breathing it, Richie. Ach! ihr jauchzende Seejungfern.
On my soul, I expect to see the very loveliest of her sex!

You must not be dismayed at pale cheeks-blasse Wangen. Her illness has
been alarming. Why, this air is the top of life; it will, and it shall,
revive her. How will she address him?--"Freund," in my presence,
perchance: she has her invalid's privilege. "Theure Prinzessin" you might
venture on. No ice! Ay, there she is!'

Solitary, on the long level of the sand-bank, I perceived a group that
became discernible as three persons attached to an invalid's chair,
moving leisurely toward us. I was in the state of mind between divination
and doubt when the riddle is not impossible to read, would but the heart
cease its hurry an instant; a tumbled sky where the break is coming. It
came. The dear old days of my wanderings with Temple framed her face. I
knew her without need of pause or retrospect. The crocus raising its cup
pointed as when it pierced the earth, and the crocus stretched out on
earth, wounded by frost, is the same flower. The face was the same,
though the features were changed. Unaltered in expression, but wan, and
the kind blue eyes large upon lean brows, her aspect was that of one who
had been half caught away and still shook faintly in the relaxing
invisible grasp.

We stopped at a distance of half-a-dozen paces to allow her time for
recollection. She eyed us softly in a fixed manner, while the sea-wind
blew her thick redbrown hair to threads on her cheek. Colour on the fair
skin told us we were recognized.

'Princess Ottilia!' said my father.

'It is I, my friend,' she answered. 'And you?'

'With more health than I am in need of, dearest princess.'

'And he?'

'Harry Richmond! my son, now of age, commencing his tour; and he has not
forgotten the farewell bunch of violets.'

Her eyelids gently lifted, asking me.

'Nor the mount you did me the honour to give me on the little Hungarian,'
said I.

'How nice this sea-air is!' she spoke in English. 'England and sea go
together in my thoughts. And you are here! I have been down very low,
near the lowest. But your good old sea makes me breathe again. I want to
to