one was open, and a large white cat lay on the
sill, apparently asleep. The windows in the first story were all open,
and a faint light stole out and illumined part of the trunk of the
acacia with a pale red glow.

There was nothing remarkable in all this. Moreover, the thoughts of the
lonely watcher beside the pump seemed to be far away from the narrow,
oppressive courtyard, in some fairy garden, for, with a happy smile he
sat down on a little stool in the bean arbor, and pulled to pieces a
withered leaf, upon which he had first pressed his lips. From the open
windows of the workshop in front of him he heard the loud snoring of
one of the journeymen, who had found the room in the rear too close,
and another seemed to be talking in his sleep. A smell of fresh
leather, cobbler's thread, and varnish, penetrated to his retreat, and
these odors, in connection with those coarse natural sounds, would have
disgusted any one else with this Midsummer Night's Dream. But the youth
in the straw hat could not seem to make up his mind to exchange the
hard seat under the scanty foliage for his usual bed. He had removed
his hat and leaned back against the wall, whose damp surface was
pleasant to his burning head. He gazed through the roof of poles at the
small patch of sky visible between the walls, and began to count the
stars. The topmost branches of the acacia gleamed in the moonlight, as
if coated with silver, and the opposite wall, as far as it was touched
by the pale light, glittered as if covered with thin ice or hoarfrost.
"Ah!" said the lonely man in the arbor, "life is still worth the
trouble! True, its brightest gift, fair as yonder stars, is as
unattainable as they--but what does that matter? Does not what we are
permitted to admire, what we can not forget, belong to us as much,
nay more, than if we had it in a chest and had lost the key?" The
striking of a clock in a neighboring steeple roused him from this
half-conscious, dreamy soliloquy. "One!" he said to himself. "It is
time to think of going to sleep. If Balder should have kept awake to
watch for me, though I expressly forbade it--"

He rose hastily and entered the house. When he had groped his way
cautiously up the rickety stairs and reached the landing on the first
story, he perceived to his astonishment that the door which led into
the rooms stood half open. A small dark ante-chamber led into a larger
apartment, lighted by a sleepy little lamp. On the sofa behind